My park life

John Van Klavern
After four decades, Lorraine Golightly still loves what she does.
Her Beacon Resort caravan park at Queenscliff turns 40 this year. Unfortunately, as Lorraine laments, she can’t say the same.
But she still thrives on the challenge of keeping the family dream alive despite the increasing pace of change, trends and fads.
“It changes all the time,” Lorraine explained.
“People’s expectations have evolved – these days they want everything they have at home.
The facilities we have now are nothing like when we started.
“Once you stop you are going backwards. There are 160 things on our list of developments to upgrade this winter.”
Lorraine admits that when her father stood on a deserted and windswept cow paddock 40 years ago, he would have had no idea what it would eventually become.
Over the journey, the family’s BIG4 Beacon Resort has set industry benchmarks, won multiple awards and changed perceptions about what holiday park accommodation is all about.
The Golightly family is recognised as an industry pioneer.
Beacon Resort was the first Victorian holiday park to be crowned five-star and last year won an Australian Tourism Award for tourist and caravan parks.
“Our dream has filtered through the generations, from 60 sites in the middle of a cow paddock when my parents started the park to a resort where we provide 31 luxury cabins with LCD televisions, iPod docks, a new indoor pool and spa and state-of-the-art kitchen facilities.
“It has been an incredible journey for us, from identifying an opportunity to provide holiday park accommodation to the Bellarine Peninsula in 1970 to present day, setting the standard of holiday parks in Australia.”
Ironically, the remote location selected by her father actually helped form the philosophy that has driven the park’s success.
“Because it was in the middle of nowhere and we were surrounded by three other caravan parks at the time, we had to be better in order to succeed,” Lorraine said.
One of the on-going challenges the park faced as a family business was who would step-up next as manager.
Lorraine started working at Beacon as a child and loved the business. When her father retired, she took up the mantle.
“Family is everything to us here and it has helped to give the business a real continuity,” she said.
“We all have different personalities that come out in our individual management and operating style and our almost non-existent staff turnover reflects the strong culture and longevity, which visitors feel when they come and stay.”
The resort faced its greatest threat when land tax soared with the value of the coastal land. Lorraine watched more than 90 caravan parks closed in 2005/2006 but she was determined to keep Beacon alive.
“We decided to segregate the park in half, reasoning we could survive on a smaller basis. The other half was developed into housing.
“It reduced the number of people we could take but, as it happened, stays have become shorter and more frequent, which suits our new format.”
Lorraine expected to keep working at the park as long as she retained her passion for the business.
“I’ll probably get too old one day,” she laughed.