Finding the ultimate wave

Shaun Levings seems always to have been in the travel industry, first with Thomas Cook in the hustle and bustle of Sydney and for the last 14 years, as owner of World Surfaris, a Queensland-based surf-holiday company which takes surfers to remote locations in search of great waves.

The idea for World Surfaris came to Shaun as he and his wife honeymooned in Noosa in 1995 and fell in love with the Sunshine Coast. They saw an opportunity for a concept Shaun had about surfing holidays. He would find the best waves in the world – not the biggest (those are in Hawaii) but the perfect tubes that surfers dream about - and take people to them.

A friend in the Maldives had a boat, and from there the business was born.

In addition to the waves, what World Surfaris sells is escape. Sunshine Coast surfers are a target of that pitch. “When the surf is good, there are so many surfers it makes it almost impossible to enjoy,” Shaun says. “One of the things that the surfers love more than anything is the lack of crowds out on the waves in these more isolated locations.”

That isolation also makes it virtually impossible for people to plan their trips without help, which is where Shaun comes in. Depending on the customer, this might mean chartering a live-aboard boat or making arrangements for a luxurious ocean dancer with a chef and masseuse.

Shaun, a surfer as well as a travel expert, believes that to succeed in business, you have to be passionate. “Then you can do it well and people will believe you,’’ he says. It’s not hard to be passionate about your business when you get to travel to the Maldives four or five times a year, as Shaun does (it’s a tough gig).

 His clientele is constantly changing. One week the customers might be doctors, lawyers or other professionals combining a yearly conference with surfing some place wonderful. The next week it might be a family surf outing or a father and son adventure. “This is something quite big for fathers and sons to do together,” Shaun says.

And even though the destinations sound exotic – the Maldives or Papua New Guinea or Micronesia – the trips aren’t out of reach for ordinary people. They start as low as $2,000, which includes airfare, accommodation and meals.

There are two seasons for World Surfaris. The Maldives are best from March through to October, when the south swells are generated. Then November through to March, the north swells come into play. “So [during summer] you have places like Papua New Guinea, where we send a lot of Australians. There is also a place in Micronesia which has a wave called P-Pass, which is highly regarded as the best right-hander in the world now,’’ says Shaun.

World Surfaris is a global business with a team of ten right here at the head office on the Sunshine Coast. There is a branch inside Kirra Surf on the Gold Coast and offices in Bali, Japan and the United States. An office in Europe is also being discussed.

Shaun acknowledges that World Surfaris has been buffeted a bit by the global financial crisis, but says that in the last few months, “things have absolutely picked up,” and he expects a great year.

One reason the business has withstood the downturn is customer service, Shaun says. “If you have a unique product, it becomes more about the service (the experience) and the price becomes less important.”

He advises business owners to be loyal to their suppliers. “If you have a small, select quality range of suppliers that you stick with, the growth of the business will be much easier to balance.”

He also recommends that businesses continue to invest. ”You have to spend money to make money. When times are a little tough, sometimes businesses will stop spending, stop advertising, for example, where in actual fact that is the time you need to spend more.”

Along those lines, Shaun has started a second company called Go See, which lets people purchase discounted water-sports holidays on kiosk touch-screens.