Qantas Founders Museum

Project overview

The Qantas Founders Museum (QFM) is a significant tourism destination in Outback Queensland that preserves and shares the story of QANTAS and its Founders. The Master Plan encompasses all aspects of the Museum’s business model, from collections and exhibition content to operations and infrastructure. The implementation of the Master Plan’s recommendations over the next 20 years will position QFM as a world-class tourist attraction, ensuring its viability into the future.

At every stage of the process, we worked closely with an active group of stakeholders to ensure the vision was in alignment with the Museum’s values and goals. This dynamic process of feedback ensured we were able to remain responsive to the client in all stages of the project, and the final document has been very well received.

Key deliverables/span>

The Master Plan process began by undertaking a Current State Analysis, against which future recommendations were made.

Through a site visit, workshops, and one-on-one meetings with stakeholders a strong and robust interpretive framework was developed. Based on the notion of “The Journey”, this interpretive framework draws on the Museum’s nationally significant collection of aviation material culture to develop the concept for a suite of new, thematically relevant, and exciting visitor experiences. Existing galleries and interpretive spaces were completely redesigned, with a view to attracting new audiences and future funding.

The Master Plan factored in operational considerations, including sustainability goals, collections storage and management, and new and existing infrastructure, to deliver functional and operationally efficient solutions that account for the QFM’s unique location and environment, and the seasonal nature of visitation.

The Master Plan made recommendations for a new, purpose-built entry facility, which would unite the interpretive offerings that are located across the large site and give a sense of arrival to visitors. Alongside this is envisioned an exciting seasonal program of festivals and events, which consider Covid-19 driven tourism trends.

The Master Plan offered benchmarking against national and international tourism leaders in aviation heritage, presenting multiple case studies that highlighted particularly effective strategies that the QFM can implement with new offerings and facilities likely to attract emerging market segments in the era of post-COVID-19 tourism.

This Masterplan provides a direction for new initiatives and is designed for implementation in targeted stages over the coming years as funding becomes available.

Client Qantas Foundation Memorial Ltd