When I founded The Tailor in December 1997, I wasn’t trying to build a travel company – I was chasing a feeling. Years earlier, while working at Lewa Downs Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya, I saw something profound: a cattle station transforming into a wildlife conservancy, using tourism as a lifeline to fund conservation and community. That transformation not only helped save the black rhino from extinction, but it also helped save the land itself.
It was in those vast spaces at the foot of Mount Kenya that I realised the real value of a property wasn’t always in its agricultural productivity. Sometimes, its most precious asset was its story – its wildlife, its wilderness, its people. And tourism was the tool that gave that story a sustainable future.
When I returned to South Australia, fresh from that experience and grounded in my roots as a sixth-generation farming family and as an agriculture science graduate from Roseworthy College, I saw an opportunity. I visited friends and family who owned stations and farms across Australia – Bullo River, Arkaba, Angorichina, Deep Well – and said: “You’ve got something special here. If people knew how you lived, how you cared for the land, they’d come. And they’d pay well for the privilege.”
What started as an idea grew into The Tailor, now recognised as one of the Australia’s leading luxury experiential travel companies. We’ve hosted thousands of guests, many of them very discerning individuals, all drawn to the magic of the real Australia – its people, its land, and its stories.
But here’s the thing: very few agricultural students in Australia are ever taught to see their land this way.
Tourism isn’t just about visitor numbers and attractions, it’s about creating connection, pride, and resilience. Especially in remote and regional Australia, where commodity prices fluctuate and rainfall can be cruel, tourism offers a stable, complementary income stream. And not just any tourism, high-end, small-scale tourism that celebrates the uniqueness of place, rewards authenticity, and values conservation.
For example, on large cattle or sheep stations, often the most agriculturally marginal land – the creeks, ridgelines, scrub and gorges – are often the most breathtaking. These aren’t liabilities. They’re opportunities. With thoughtful preservation and low-impact development, these areas can be turned into national park-like sanctuaries for visitors who crave reconnection with nature and with the people who live close to it.
Tourism gives farmers a way to share their way of life. It allows them to say, “This is who we are. This is what we do.” And guests, many from cities and other continents, respond to that with curiosity, gratitude, and awe.
It also creates diverse career paths for young people wanting to stay on the land. A lodge, a guiding business, a local food experience, these are jobs that honour the land, keep families in the bush, and breathe life into regional communities.
Today, through The Tailor, I’m working with visionary station owners like Rob Venturin at Finniss River Station in the Northern Territory. Rob added a six-bedroom lodge to his cattle property and is now welcoming guests from around the globe. He saw the potential and backed himself, and it’s paying off. And now his daughter, Olivia, is involved in both the tourism and agriculture side of their business.
So why aren’t our agricultural universities offering dedicated tourism modules?
I think the reason is twofold. One because they simply aren’t aware that this type of tourism exists and secondly because tourism still isn’t seen as “serious” in agriculture more broadly. But if we want a future where rural Australia thrives, we must teach the next generation how to see their land in full – cattle paddocks and conservation zones, silos and storylines, harvests and hospitality.
The best tourism in Australia doesn’t compete with agriculture, it compliments it.
post date: 24-07-2025
written by: Drew Kluska
