THE BRIEF
In October 2016, Quadrant acquired Great Southern Rail (GSR), the owner and operator of the iconic Australia transcontinental Ghan and Indian Pacific rail businesses. Together with GSR, the further addition of the Cruise Whitsundays and Rottnest Express marine tourism businesses, have created the foundation for a new experiential tourism company, Journey Beyond.
With operations across every state of mainland Australia, the Group now employs over 800 people and carries over 1m guests per annum.
OUR APPROACH
Quadrant were attracted to GSR, Cruise Whitsundays and Rottnest Express, due to their leading positions in their respective markets and regions and their strong alignment to experiential tourism. Our investment thesis is to build an iconic Australian tourism group leveraged to the strong industry dynamics and growing trend for ‘experiential travel’.
Further strategic acquisitions in this sector are planned, all of which should benefit from the continued strong growth profile of the tourism industry, supported by strong inbound demand from Asian markets, an aging population and the trend towards authentic, high quality immersive holiday experiences.
So far, Quadrant has achieved a number of strategic and operational improvements including:
- Established a core Executive structure and team.
- Framed up an acquisition strategy and assessed a range of potential target opportunities.
- Established a group wide integrated revenue generation and finance shared services structure.