Gold Coast adventure business climbing out of adversity

One of the Gold Coast’s longest running adventure-based businesses says it has been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic closures – but says Gold Coasters are literally climbing the walls, out of their imposed lockdown to attempt new adventures.

Dave Payne, who has operated the ParamountAdventure Centre at West Burleigh for almost 30 years, says while turnoverdropped to zero for almost three months, he is now seeing a new wave of GoldCoasters reinvigorating not only his business but the sport of rock climbing.

This includes a small group of die-hards,including Tihana Picot, arock climbing ‘young gun’ who has welcomed the re-opening of the centre as shepursues an Olympic dream with the sport of rock climbing scheduled for the nextOlympics.

“It’s been a very tough time for us –definitely the worst we have seen in almost 30 years in business,” said Mr Payne.

“We basically locked the doors. We had noturnover for nearly three months and even now with the restrictions lifted –like restaurants – there are limits to how many people we can have in our gymand doing the other activities we offer, such as kayaking, abseiling andsurfing.

“But we hope there’s a silver lining. Not onlydo we have people like Tihana, part of a small group of hardcore climbers, butwe have noticed families coming into the centre who have never climbed before.

“With the school holidays starting we’re hopefulthat people from the Gold Coast will come and support us and other tourism-relatedbusinesses that have been so adversely impacted.”

Mr Payne said he was forced to stand down 12casual staff because they were ineligible for the JobKeeper package offered bythe Federal Government, but retained two staff who were full-time employees.

“With the uncertainty over the border closure,we like many other adventure and tourism businesses, are relying now on localsto support us as we begin to rebuild,” he says.

“And we’re definitely getting the sense thatpeople want to come and support us.

“It’s going to be a long road back as the newregulations reduce the number of people we can have in the rock climbing gym atany one time, so that really does impact on revenue.

“I don’t really see this changing any time soon,so we are just focussing on providing an amazing experience for our existingcustomers as well as newcomers to the sport of rock climbing and other adventureactivities.

“It’s a very good, safe form of exercise thatis suited to families.”

Mr Payne said the announcement that rockclimbing would be included in the Olympics in Japan – schedule for this yearbut postponed due to Covid – was driving a new breed of young climbers.

“We have a whole group of young kids coming inthat are very, very good at rock climbing.

“We have all the facilities here for them tohone their skills and people like Tihana are progressing really well and evenhave aspirations of competing at the Olympics in the future.

“We work with young groups to give them everyopportunity in a controlled environment to equip them with the skills they needto be the very best, and this is very satisfying for us as a business.”

The Paramount Adventure Centre is located at 38Hutchinson Street, West Burleigh.

For more information visit https://www.paramountadventures.com.au/.