Who feeds Great Ocean Road tourists when the summer tidal wave hits?

The peak season at the Port Campbell Hotel truly kicks off on Boxing Day, and over the following days and weeks the pub can serve meals to around 750 people a day.

William Haig’s family has owned the Port Campbell Hotel since the early 1970s. He took over the business with his wife nine years ago.

🍴The numbers: A hectic summer day will see 200-300 people fed at lunch, and another 350-450 at dinner.

“Tourism is getting bigger; obviously, there's gas plant workers, different projects going on around with tourism like the Apostles at the moment, it brings a lot of business to town,” Haig told the Brolga.

• In 2024, more than 6.8 million tourists visited the Great Ocean Road. By the end of next year, that number is expected to grow to 8.6 million.

• January is the busiest month, with an average of 830,000 visitors, followed by December with 670,000 visitors.

⚖️ Pros and cons: For many business owners in the area, a booming Christmas and New Year period can set them up for the year ahead, providing a financial buffer for the fallow periods.

But staffing a bar, restaurant, motel or retail shop with temporary workers is a huge challenge. Especially if the sun is out and the workers have no real investment in the business.

“As time's gone along, I've started sponsoring a lot of my kitchen staff, to have that consistency,” Haig explained. “You can't carry a lot of staff until you get really busy. So it’s actually quite tricky every year; the challenge from about now onwards [is] trying to tee staff up and organise extra chefs.”

☀️ Seasonal challenges: As in many small coastal towns, Port Campbell’s work is seasonal, which makes “the pool of staff to choose from” much smaller.

“A lot of the chefs in the area want to do cafe work, where they're doing breakfast and lunches, not dinners,” Haig said. 

“That's why I've had to branch out and sponsor people from overseas. We've got a couple of Nepalese chefs, an Indian chef, a Peruvian chef and Kenyan chefs.”

Haig says the good times roll until school goes back. After that, “it’s still busy tourist-wise, obviously [if] the weather's good - there’s just not as many families.”

Buoyed by events such as Crayfest, weekends remain strong throughout February and March.