For the month of February, we wanted to put forward a Guest Experience Innovation from Auburn Ruth Everuss Aquatic Centre that we are extremely proud of. Auburn is one of Australia’s most culturally diverse communities which is to be embraced and celebrated, but also provides challenges as specific groups have specific expectations and cultural requirements. Add to this a busy centre with carnivals, school swimming, water polo, Go Swim squads, Korean and Chinese Swim schools, a gym facility, external bookings, and our general public.

We can be at times challenged to cater for everyone’s needs and requirements in terms of genuine guest experience, whereby every guest is having an experience based on their interpretation of what their visit should feel like.

Sublime simplicity … what a great decision to create pop-up change rooms.

Amity College, a well-respected and prestigious Muslim school insisted that they have exclusive use of our changing room as part of their school swimming lesson program when considering the volume of programs and the need to provide access for patrons to change as a community facility we were unable to provide this. ‘Saying no’ was not an option for us and we workshopped solutions to ensure we achieved the best guest experience for all, whilst completely understanding the school’s belief system and requirements.

Our outcome – we implemented rows of stand-up tents located in a part of the facility that both allows the students complete privacy and access to change privately at any time they wish to attend the centre. This has received extremely positive feedback We feel that this is a genuine solution to not only allow the ‘children to be children’ with their excitement and chatter, the religious requirements to be fully met alongside allowing our loyal and ‘every-day’ guests to enjoy a peaceful and calm changing room experience.

This solution allows us to service a diverse audience equally at the same time as being commercial.