Question 5. Sustainability and Innovation (20 points) b) Describe how your business benefits and respects local community values and culture. (7 points) The Whitsunday Tropical Fruit Winery respects local community values and culture. We are proud to call ourselves locals and have Whitsundays in our business name. We also love sailing, an important part of living in the Whitsundays. c) Describe any innovations you have put in place during the qualifying period to improve your business and the specific benefits achieved. (6 points) The Whitsunday Tropical Fruit Winery has had a busy year implementing new ideas and innovations to improve the customer experience. Improving the Customer Experience August 2010 saw the opening of the new wine tasting room and the relocation and expansion of the gift shop. Previously, visitors to the winery would be welcomed into an older style shed on the premises to conduct tastings. We, the owners, decided that we would like to offer a more upmarket experience and had a purpose-built tasting room constructed on the WTFW premises in a particularly scenic spot, not far from the main residence and easily accessible from the front entrance of the property. Image 19: Customers enjoying the new tasting room The new tasting room is constructed of locally sourced timber and corrugated iron cladding, in a typical Australian country theme. The counter inside the tasting room is constructed of locally renowned Mackay Cedar, prized for its marbled patterns of pale to reddish-brown hues. The tasting room is fully insulated and provides air-conditioned comfort for visitors all year round. A set of large bi-folding doors and an undercover patio area were created, so that customers can enjoy an indoor/outdoor experience in pleasant weather. In the old tasting room, customers had to stand at the counter to enjoy wine tastings, whereas the new tasting room provides ample indoor and outdoor bench seating in addition to the counter, to allow larger groups of up to 60 guests at a time, (40 indoors and 20 outdoors) to enjoy a proper tasting session in comfort. A new concrete driveway and customer parking area was also created, to allow easier all-weather access to the tasting room. The benefits to the business of this new tasting room and the associated improvements were apparent almost immediately. Visitor numbers in the financial year 2010 2011 have increased significantly over the previous financial year (see Graph 12 below). Page 31
Being able to cater for larger groups than ever before, and provide a comfortable environment in all seasons which has encouraged groups and other visitors to linger longer, enjoying a more relaxed and fun experience, which in turn has shown an increase in cellar door and gift shop sales. Graph 12: Increase in Visitor Numbers 2008-2011 Associated Marketing Activities The increase in popularity of the tasting room encouraged other local businesses - food, craft and souvenir producers - to contact us, interested in displaying and selling their products in our gift shop. Inspired by the increase in local interest in our product, we embarked on an active marketing campaign, targeting local businesses of a similar nature, hotel operators and tour desks in town to advise them of the changes to the WTFW and invite them to join forces with is to provide a fun new customer experience. Some of the activities undertaken included: A local agents and hotel operators afternoon inviting them to experience a tropical fruit wine tasting free of charge; Meeting with sales and marketing personnel of transport companies and other similar businesses to provide a package tour comprising multiple local Whitsunday gourmet food products; Targeting other local Whitsunday producers, specifically those with the Made in the Whitsundays tag, to sell their products in our gift shop. The coming year will also see a number of innovative new ideas put into place, on which we are working at the moment. Page 32
New packages The opening of the new tasting room and the marketing activities mentioned above, resulted in the creation of some new packages offering visitors a land-based Whitsundays experience incorporating a sample of the region s gourmet experiences. We have joined forces with the following local operators and are always on the lookout for new opportunities: Whitsunday Gold Coffee Plantation The owners of the strawberry, passionfruit and lemon myrtle farms Airlie Beach Hotel Overall Results Image 20: Packages brochure Overall, while the construction of the new tasting room involved a significant capital investment, the benefits far outweigh the cost. We at WTFW have seen an increase in visitor numbers, which in turn has resulted in an increase in profits. We have been able to employ two new staff to help manage the increase in visitors and our staff enjoy coming to work in the lovely new environment. The growth of the gift shop and the implementation of the new packages have improved business relationships within the local tourism and food industries as well. We intend to continue along the same vein and look forward to continued growth and success in the coming year. Thank you for visiting the Page 33
Rules of Entry Font: Format: Layout: Pages: All font (questions, answers, tables) must be no smaller than 12 point Times New Roman or Arial. No variation, such as narrow or condensed font styles, is acceptable. However, image captions may use a smaller font size down to a minimum of 8 point. All text should be 1½ line spacing (Microsoft Word) or equivalent, with the following exceptions: Text contained within a multi-column table may be single line spaced as long as tables do not represent more than 8 pages of the total submission. Question text and captions may be single line spaced. All pages should be numbered. All pages should be the same orientation portrait or landscape. Main body text should be presented in a single-column format i.e. no newspaper/multiple column formats. Tables are excluded from this formatting guideline. State the question then your answer. The submission must have no more than 30 pages including text, graphs and images. Note: The 30 page total does not include the cover page and contents page. Whilst a cover page is mandatory, a table of contents is optional. To ensure consistency and fairness in judging, the Rules for Entry must be strictly met. Failure to follow the rules may attract a deduction of up to 15 points. Note: In some categories the competition is very close and the deduction of any points could be the difference between winning and losing. Failure to comply with size of document A4 attracts 2 penalty points Font that is less than 12 points attracts 4 penalty points More than 30 submission pages attracts 1 penalty point per page Failure to format to 1½ line spacing attracts 4 penalty points Use of more than 8 pages in total of tables attracts 2 penalty points
What is wrong with this submission? Point deductions for not adhering to the rules: 1. Font it s Calibri, not the required Times New Roman or Arial. 2. The questions have also been printed in Arial Narrow, when narrow versions of the desired fonts are not allowed. 3. Font it s 11pt smaller than the required 12 pts. Deduction = 4 points. 4. Line spacing it s written in single line spacing, not the required 1½ line spacing. Deduction = 4 points. 5. Page limit it s 33 pages long, 3 over the maximum. Deduction = 3 points (1 point per page). Total points lost = 13 points! So, if you had been awarded 80 points for your submission, and a competitor had been awarded 75 points, and you copped this deduction of 13 points for not adhering to the submission rules, you d end up with just 67 points and would not win, even though your submission content was initially judged the best. Silly to lose points for no reason, isn t it? Areas of improvement that may have earned more points: 6. Question 5a was not answered sufficiently. The question is worth 7 points, and the answer given is 3 sentences, not really even addressing the question. 7. In Question 5c, Improving the Customer Experience, the addition of an image of the new building could be inserted here to show the judges what the new development looks like. After all, a picture tells a thousand words. 8. An increase in cellar door and gift shop sales is mentioned, so the addition of a table proving this might be beneficial and would provide evidence to the fact. Have a think about: what you like about the submission what elements you could use for your own submission how you would improve it what other elements you could use to help illustrate your message how you will make yours stand out from the crowd, while still sticking to the rules, and how you could earn maximum points per question.