SCENIC WORLD Announced 3rd Generation Winner of The NSW & ACT Family Business of the Year Awards

The peak body for family businesses, Family Business Australia (FBA) today announced Blue Mountains-based Tourist Operator, Scenic World, as the 2007 winner of the Third Generation category in the NSW & ACT Family Business of the Year Awards.
NSW FBA Chairman, Terry Rowney, says the Scenic World business is particularly outstanding when considering the family has created something which is now internationally recognised as a key Australian tourism attraction, as well as being one of the largest privately owned tourist attractions in the country.
Rowney added: “Its success seems to be attributed largely to the way in which all the generations of the Hammon family have continued to grow the business through a combination of sound practices and continued enthusiasm for the unique experience they are providing for the tourism industry.”
The judges noted the following outstanding aspects of the Scenic World application:
• Ability to innovate and reinvent its offering;
• The family’s ability to adopt family business best practice through the development of a family constitution and the establishment of a family council; and,
• Articulated family vision as well as an understanding of the value of encouraging family members to gain experience outside the family business for a period of time before joining the family business.

ABOUT SCENIC WORLD
The Scenic World company was founded in the Blue Mountains in 1945 when Harry Hammon saw the potential of an old green shed and a small passenger carrying car that held 24 people and ran only on weekends.
Over the next 60 years, three generations of the family have overseen the growth of the Scenic Railway, the construction of the original Scenic Skyway - the first and only horizontal cable car in Australia, a revolving restaurant, café, kiosk and souvenir shop, the steepest cable car ride in Australia (the Scenic Cableway), a 2.2 km elevated boardwalk adjoining a World Heritage Listed National Park as well as a 100 seat cinema.
Scenic World now hosts approximately 1 million visitors per year. Harry’s son Phillip now owns and operates the company with two of his five children involved in the day-to-day running of the business.