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Business View Oceania - January/February 2017
ue’s main features. Anyone who visits
the location can attest to its beauty.
The gardens, which spread across
eight acres, feature both native flow-
ering trees and exotic specimens. Be-
cause guests frequently enquire about
them, the organisation recently com-
pleted a project to identify and label
all of the important species. The pris-
tine gardens offer a sense of tranquil-
ity that makes CountryPlace ideal for
both business and leisure.
Special events, popular
with guests
One example of a popular event is
the Faulty Towers Dining Experience.
“We have been running the Faulty
Towers Dinner Show for the past three
years and it’s now enormously popu-
lar. We sell out well ahead of time for
each of the events and we will be run-
ning six of them this year. Faulty Tow-
ers tends to attract people who are fa-
miliar with the show. Often corporate
groups will include a show to provide
a highlight for their event,” says Jeffry
Farman.
Moving Australia’s venues
forward
When the Farmans acquired the ven-
ue in 1992, they quickly focused on
turning it into a prestigious yet ap-
proachable organisation that could
accommodate a range of different cli-
ents. Soon after the purchase, they
went on a tour of venues in the Unit-
ed States. Here they became familiar
with the International Association of
Conference Centers (IACC). Member-
ship of the association required strict
standards with regard to meeting fa-
cilities and conference rooms. For ex-
ample, meeting rooms must have very
good natural light with lots of windows.
Fully adjustable ergonomic chairs were
required to provide all-day comfort for
conference delegates.
With all that in mind, the company de-
veloped a purpose-built conference fa-
cility, connected to the main complex,
that met all of these standards. Having
met the criteria, CountryPlace became
the first Australian conference centre
Jeffry Farman