Ayers Rock Resort to be sold to American-owned tourism company

The Ayers Rock Resort at Uluru is set to change hands, after the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC) came to an agreement with "experiential tourism" company Journey Beyond.

Journey Beyond is owned by American private equity firm Crestview Partners and already operates several high-profile tourism assets, including the Ghan and Indian Pacific railways.

The deal sees Journey Beyond purchase the operational assets of ILSC subsidiary Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia, which include the Ayers Rock Resort and the Mossman Gorge Cultural in Far North Queensland.

Land and buildings at both locations will be transferred to traditional owners, Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara of Yulara and the Kuku Yalanji of Mossman Gorge.

The move brings to an end a 15-year foray into large tourism ventures by the ILSC.

In 2010, the Indigenous Land Corporation board announced with great fanfare that it was buying the Ayers Rock Resort, near Uluru, for $300 million.

The deal with Journey Beyond is likely to be for less than $300 million and, while Voyages Indigenous Tourism was never supposed to be just about making a profit, the impending sale has some people asking questions, like was it worth it?

What is the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation?

The Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC), now known as the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC), was set up in 1995 in the wake of the historic Mabo High Court decision that recognised Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal traditional title to land.

One of the ILC's functions is to manage the Land Account, which aims to help Indigenous people to acquire land and manage it in a sustainable way, to provide economic, social and cultural benefits for themselves and future generations.

The direction and responsibilities of the ILSC have evolved over the years and now include a wide range of Indigenous-led projects, agribusinesses, tourism enterprises and to help native title holders, if needed.

The ILSC board is the primary decision-making body and oversees governance, considers land acquisition and land management proposals and monitors performance.

The board consists of seven directors appointed by the federal minister for Indigenous Australians. Five of them, including the chairperson, must be Indigenous people.

Why did the board buy Ayers Rock Resort?

In 2007, the ILC decided to focus on education, training and employment.

This meant a considerable expansion to build businesses and create training opportunities.

The ILC announced it had acquired Ayers Rock Resort at Yulara near Uluru from property giant GPT for $300 million in October 2010.

"The resort represents a unique and probably the biggest opportunity to advance the training and employment of Indigenous people in the Australian tourism and hospitality industries," ILC chairperson Shirley McPherson said at the time.

The idea was to increase Indigenous employment at the resort from a handful to more than half the staff members and to establish a National Indigenous Tourism Training Academy, with 200 people in training each year from 2013.

Was the purchase contentious?

When she was appointed ILC chair in 2011, Dr Dawn Casey started digging into the purchase.

And she was outraged by what she found.

Property giant GPT originally offered the resort to the ILC for $270 million in 2009, but the sale price was revised upwards by $30 million in 2010.

In a 2015 letter to then-prime minister Tony Abbott, Dr Casey alleged the former ILC board agreed to the increased price "without any sound reasoning documented in the [then ILC board] minutes".

The letter states:

"[This was] despite strong concerns from certain directors and due diligence advisers indicating that the purchase price may not have been commensurate with the resort's value."

Banks had refused to finance the full acquisition in 2009, and then-indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin declined to back the purchase and forbade access to the Land Account for it.

When GPT increased the resort's sale price in 2010, the property giant proposed a new seller-financed model, also called vendor finance, where the seller loans the purchaser all or part of a loan that they would not otherwise be able to secure.

That meant the ILC was able to borrow $198 million to buy the resort, including land, buildings, infrastructure and the nearby airport at Yulara.

In 2016, then-Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion authorised a $65 million federal government bailout for the ILC to help refinance the resort, blaming the global financial crisis.

Voyages still has an external debt of more that $100 million.

What is the resort worth?

While Uluru has been a sacred and spiritual place for Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years, tourists have been flocking to the rock since the first graded road from Alice Springs was completed in the 1950s.

By 1968, visitor numbers had grown to more than 20,000 annually but facilities at the base of Uluru were unregulated, driving governments to develop the concept of a resort during the 1970s.

The original tourism site is now the Indigenous township of Mutitjulu.

The resort was opened in 1984 and celebrated its 40th anniversary last year.

It is the only place tourists can stay to visit Uluru and contains a range of accommodation options from campsites through to high-end rooms, restaurants, pools and an art gallery.

But by the time the ILC took possession of the resort in early 2011, it needed renovating and modernising.

In October 2013, the ILC announced it had written $62 million off the value of the resort.

It also said it was having trouble dealing with its annual interest repayments of about $10 million.

In January 2014, the resort was revalued again down to $202.5 million.

And, like all tourism ventures, it was adversely affected by the pandemic from 2020.

Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Kerrynne Liddle, an Arrernte woman, worked for Voyages Tourism for a few years, to increase Indigenous employment outcomes and help the resort better engage with the local Mutitjulu community.

She said it was a worthwhile and valuable exercise that involved a lot of resetting relationships with the local community.

"My focus was also making sure that Aboriginal people weren't only employed at the lower levels of the business, that they could do anything," she said.

Senator Liddle said, in her time at the resort, Indigenous people were able to access registered training, and were employed in all sorts of roles, from front of house to senior leadership.

"People came from all over Australia to work there and … it's pretty special when you walk into a hotel anywhere in Australia and see Indigenous people just doing their jobs … it is really wonderful to see," she said.

But, despite the positive outcomes in training and employment, Senator Liddle has questions.

"Unfortunately, it struggled to operate effectively from a profit perspective because of the extraordinary way in which it was financed," she said.

Looking back, Dr Casey says there's "no doubt" that the training and employment programs were valuable and excellent.

"But it did hamstring us in terms of the funding that we had to pay out on loans," she said.

"We set it up so that we could see exactly how much it cost to operate, separated it out from the rest of the budget and, yeah, it was a major concern for during the period that we were there."

What's for sale?

Voyages' operational assets are being sold to Journey Beyond.

The land will be divested to the traditional owners at both Yulara and Mossman Gorge, with the ILSC saying there has been multi-year consultation and engagement with Anangu in Central Australia and the Kuku Yalanji in Far North Queensland.

Later, following the transfer of land to community corporations, both communities will be paid rent from Journey Beyond's leasing of the sites under 90 and 10-year leases, respectively.

The sale has already been brought to the attention of the Foreign Investment Review Board.

In addition, in central Australia there are to be areas that will remain outside of a leasing arrangement and remain with community.

One of those areas will be used to develop a business hub, for Anangu (local people) and there is another area which is being set aside, outside of the lease, where Anangu can look to develop their own cultural tourism activities, not just rely on a partnership with Voyages to run experiences at the resort.

In a statement, Yulara Aboriginal Corporation said they were happy with the decision to hand back land that was originally excised from Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park and looking forward to working with Journey Beyond "in the development of world class Indigenous tourism experiences that will share our language, our culture and our rich landscapes with visitors".

The transaction is expected to be finalised in early 2026, along with the divestment of the Yulara land to Anangu.

The Mossman Gorge land divestment will follow once the native title application that embraces the cultural centre site is determined.