Luxury Travel Magazine's Chairman's Lounge: Ralph Norris

I interviewed Ralph Norris for the January-March 2011 edition of Luxury Travel Magazine. Here's the article, as published (the magazine includes an accompanying picture of Ralph in his office):

Ralph Norris, the chief executive of Commonwealth Bank, may have earned $16.2 million in the last year but, when it comes to travel, Australia’s highest paid executive has subtle taste.
“I’ve just spent a week at Kruger National Park on the border of Mozambique,” he says. “The animals were the stars of the show. We got to see the leopards and the lions and elephants and giraffes in their natural habitat.
“And it was very environmentally structured accommodation. If they ever took it down you wouldn’t see any sign it had been there.”
Norris says, first and foremost, he likes to make sure “that I’ve got a good bed and food that’s edible”. “I’m not into over-the-top luxury but something that’s comfortable,” he says, also citing Six Senses Vatulele Island Lodge in Fiji as a “good example of understated luxury”.
Norris is as literate as any destination marketer in the world of tourism and travel, courtesy of an unusual detour on what has otherwise been a lifelong career path in banking.
The detour was his appointment in February 2002 to the role of chief executive of Air New Zealand, a position he held until becoming Commonwealth Bank’s CEO in September 2005. Bankers are as notoriously risk-averse as the tourism and travel industry is risky, so how did such a divergence, after 29 years in banking, come about?
The answer is almost by accident, or, as he puts it, as a consequence of a “confluence of events”. “During my last five or six years as CEO of Auckland Savings Bank I chaired Tourism Auckland,” Norris explains. “As a result of that, I became a director of Air New Zealand. “After the Ansett debacle [its 2001 collapse and that of Air New Zealand with it] forced Government recapitalisation of Air New Zealand I got the opportunity to become chief executive primarily, by default. It was very difficult to fi nd anyone who was willing to risk their reputation in such a difficult set of circumstances.
So why did he? “I saw that very much as being a contribution to New Zealand,” he says. “If I could bring some expertise to help resuscitate the airline I saw that as something worthwhile doing. In New Zealand, the economy has a very strong contribution that comes from tourism.”
As a result, Norris has thought deeply about the tourism successes of his native New Zealand and pondered the travel and tourism market in Australia. He has been surprised at the limited offering in the luxury segment in Australia when compared with New Zealand. Australia, he says, has five times the population of New Zealand and an average income that is probably 25 to 30 per cent higher.
“So, if you looked at some of those numbers as to how New Zealand is able to sustain all of those [luxury] lodges - I would suspect pretty close to half the people that visit those are locals, or a significant proportion, I think there is a strong market here in Australia to tap.”
So why does Norris imagine Australia has not yet catered to the luxury marketplace to a greater degree?
“I think a lot of players in Australia want to play the scale game. When you look at the beaches, the climate, those natural endowments that travellers like, I think the focus has been much more of the style of the large hotels of a Las Vegas or Florida.”

RALPH’S FAVOURITES …

WAIHEKE ISLAND, OFF AUCKLAND:
“I’ve got a property on Waiheke. I’m very fortunate. We’ve got our own private bay. There are more than 50 vineyards on the island. If you want to go to a good restaurant, try Mud Brick. What a fantastic view back to the city. Te Whau’s got great architecture. It’s on a point, very high, with the best wine cellar of any restaurant in New Zealand and the food is extraordinary.

CINQUE TERRE ON THE ITALIAN COAST: “Magnificent weather, walking the coast, looking at the way the local olive growers and grape growers effectively grow their crops on a vertical plain - stress the vines and you get great wines.”

... AND HIS BUCKET LIST

ANGKOR WAT IN CAMBODIA:
“To go and see something that was built one thousand years ago and be there in the early morning in the mist, there’s an ethereal quality that’s been described to me and it’s something I’d like to experience.”

ROUTE 66 FROM LA TO CHICAGO:
“Even though I’m told it’s overrated, I’d like to drive it. I remember the old Route 66 TV program when I was a kid back in the early 60s, two guys driving it in a Chevy Corvette.”