Chris Pye has spent 40 years developing the state’s tourism industry and, after trying retirement once, he has no plans of slowing down.
RETIRING in your 30s, ideally to some sort of tropical oasis, may be the ‘great Australian dream’ for some, but when tourism industry stalwart Chris Pye lived the dream and entered retirement well before his 40th birthday, he soon had just one thing on his mind – getting back to work as quickly as possible.
Mr Pye says he and his late father, John Pye (a motel and drive-in movie theatre pioneer in WA) retired together, in 1987, when he was 36 and his dad 74.
“After about a week we looked at each other and decided it wasn’t very good fun,” Mr Pye says.
“There was enough money to retire, but it was too boring.”
His mindset when aged 36, committed to developing new projects for the betterment of Western Australia, layered with a hard work ethic instilled by his father and mother, has not changed during the past 23 years.
To this day, Mr Pye cannot understand people who say they’re bored, suggesting there is always too much to do (in business and socially with family and friends) and only fleeting time to do it.
Before long, father and son had come out of retirement and immediately repurchased the family’s WA motels from Sir Norman Rydge (of Rydge’s Hotels and Greater Union Cinemas fame), who had earlier taken ownership of about 27 properties across the country, which Mr Pye’s father had either developed or acquired during the preceding 25 years.
His father built WA’s first motel, and the nation’s third, called the Highway Motel in Bentley in the early 1960s, at the request of then premier, David (later Sir David) Brand who earmarked tourism as a key economic driver for the state going forward.
Since that time the family company, Hospitality Proprietary Limited, which is still run by Mr Pye and his older siblings, David and Merrilyn, has grown to become a key tourism player (although Mr Pye prefers not to talk it up).
“There’s probably 56 companies woven into that [Hospitality Pty Ltd] fabric,” Mr Pye says.
“A lot of them are non-operational and don’t deal with the public, and they own bits and pieces of [property and tourism-related] stuff all over the place.”
Currently, Mr Pye is chief executive and chairman of Hospitality Inns, which owns and operates four regional motels under the Best Western brand in Esperance, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie and Carnarvon, and another Hospitality Inn branded motel in Port Hedland.
He is chief executive and chairman of the Eco Company and its brand, Ecomodation, which is the managing agent for the Karijini Eco Retreat on behalf of the Gumala Aboriginal Corporation.
Mr Pye is also director of Ace Cinemas (formed by his father in 1954, stemming from the original Bentley drive-in theatre business now overseen by his brother, David) and Westclub, a diverse loyalty card company.
To add to his busy working life, Mr Pye is boss of DriveWA.com (a travel information website closely linked to one of his passions – four-wheel-driving across regional WA) and WA Pass, a website that rewards WA travellers with discount offers to explore the state.
Plus he remains on the board of Tourism Council WA and is a director of Quest Serviced Apartments’ WA arm and hospitality consultants, Xplanations.
Obviously Mr Pye wears a lot of hats in and around the tourism industry, although he says the work he did for VarietyWA several years ago was some of his most rewarding.
However, the honours degree in law he received from the University of WA in the early 1970s didn’t alter his career path, which always seemed destined to involve tourism, although he did form a commercial law firm with university friend Graham Quartermaine in 1976, called Pye & Quartermaine.
But Mr Pye’s devotion to tourism was paramount and after Mr Quartermaine almost single-handedly built up the practice, Mr Pye was happy to let his friend buy back his share of the business for the princely sum of $1.
Despite his vast business interests, Mr Pye rates family as the most important aspect of his life.
This is no-better illustrated than by his dedicating the highest personal accolade he has received for his tourism work (as the individual recipient of the Sir David Brand Medal at last year’s state tourism awards) to his father.
“That [Sir David Brand Medal] should’ve been dad’s,” he says.
What was your first job?
Playing guitar, and the fool, in a band called The Fuzz. Our first show was at The Mosman Park Hall so many years ago now I can’t even tell you when it was.
Do you have a mentor?
Dad – he always wanted to make WA better and that’s what I want too. You could call me a rabid West Australian.
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Just like my dad. But my mum, who used to do work for the United Nations, wanted me to be a UN lawyer, so I guess that’s why I studied law.
What’s your greatest indulgence?
Sport, music and Western Australian wine.
What does the future hold?
Well, dad worked until he was 93, so I guess I’ll be working for a while because you’ve got to do something. I don’t understand people who say they are bored, there’s so much to do and time is the enemy. I can’t believe I’m 58. The fear I have is that my health may stop me from working.
What would you do as premier for a day?
There’s too much focus on mining and not enough focus on food. So many people, and not just the indigenous population, are living in poverty and more money needs to go to schools and hospitals and police. In terms of tourism, the state needs a business plan for tourism and a tourism development authority to help guide development.
