Robert Pennicott
"I found out, right in the beginning, that you can make such a big difference even with a little bit. It’s always been my philosophy: lots of little make a big."
"It's about treating every person who travels with us as a member of the club. We let them know that a portion of their tickets goes into the foundation. They’re contributing to something bigger than us."
When he was not yet a teenager, a young Tasmanian asked his dad if he could borrow the family dinghy.
“I could go fishing and sell the fish over the school holidays,” says Robert Pennicott, of his first attempt at entrepreneurship. “Dad said no. But to my amazement he said, ‘I’ll lend you $3,000 at 10 per cent interest for 10 weeks. If you don’t pay me back, the boat is gone.’”
It was a perfect and potentially brutal lesson in the realities of capitalism. He worked hard on the water and learned about customer service on the land. He paid his father back, through his door-to-door fishing business, and when he was 17 he made it a legal endeavour.
One parent encouraged him to be an entrepreneur while the other reminded him that it can be a hard life. To please his cautious mum, Robert worked at a credit union and moved his fishing business to weekends.
He discovered that he knew things, of the maritime wonders of Tasmania, that delighted friends who had not spent their spare time in boats. He took them to see cliffs, caves, blow holes, and the magnificent creatures of the Southern Ocean: dolphins, whales, seals, birds.
Through this, Robert discovered his true passion.
In 1999, he started his eco tourism venture with his first 12-seat boat. And he lost $40,000. “But the guests were happy,” he says, “So I knew I was on the right track.”
He still makes people happy. It is a deeply Tasmanian experience, for locals and visitors, to put on a signature red raincoat and head out to sea in a blue and yellow boat, to do a contemporary version of what Robert first did in the late 1990s: meet dolphins and seals, enter caves, and learn about water, geology, history, and maritime culture.
It is a warm Friday afternoon on the 50-seat Freycinet Explorer, one of the familiar Pennicott Wilderness Journeys fleet. The Derwent River is calm. Robert’s son had just skippered his first trip. “I didn’t force it on him but... I’m very proud.”
In Australia, Robert and his team have won multiple awards including 14 National Tourism Awards. Robert is typically humble about his success, talking about his devoted staff and happy clients who have supported him, but what really gets him excited are his philanthropic efforts.
Even in that first year, when he lost all of that money, he made a donation to the Bruny Island School Learn to Swim program. “I found out, right in the beginning, that you can make such a big difference even with a little bit, in that first year a couple of thousand bucks. And I’ve been doing it ever since. If I could save one person from drowning it would have been worthwhile. It’s always been my philosophy: lots of little make a big.”
The company and its foundation gave to 436 organisations last year, and funded projects of its own. He worked with about 30 schools. He speaks to community groups of all ages across the state. Robert has cleaned beaches, cleared plastic from the oceans, restored ecosystems, and recently donated thousands of dollars to bring Tasmanian Aboriginal artifacts home from overseas museums and galleries.
“It's about treating every person who travels with us as a member of the club,” he says. “We let them know that a portion of their tickets goes into the foundation. They’re contributing to something bigger than us.”
The latest is the Good Water Project, an initiative to reduce the use of plastic water bottles by putting up water filling stations throughout the state. Robert worked with Hobart City Council, TasWater, Brand Tasmania, and The20 to begin with a pilot at Sullivan’s Cove in Hobart – where his office is located.
Of all his awards, the one that means the most to Robert was “the world’s best marine and coastal sustainable tourism product” by Skal International, at a forum in Monaco. On a Pennicott journey, the clever and knowledgeable guides never boast about these awards or even specific activity. Yet as you pull into the harbour, they let us know that by supporting Pennicott Wilderness Journeys we support its philanthropic efforts.
They said it was a way to give back to us, after all we’d done for the community. Hearing something like that, it makes you want to shake and cry.
In the early days of COVID, when Tasmania was open to Tasmanians but closed to everyone else, Robert issued discounted vouchers, both to offer trips to locals and to keep the business alive. The first round saw $750,000 worth of vouchers sold. The next two rounds were equally successful.
“I heard from people who said they’d bought $1,000 worth but didn’t have any intention of using them. They said it was a way to give back to us, after all we’d done for the community. Hearing something like that, it makes you want to shake and cry.”
Tasmania’s current and future visitors want to make a positive impact on the environment, to be “one of us,” culturally, and to contribute in some meaningful way. Robert has long been a pioneer in positive impact tourism. The business and the experiences it offers have been carbon neutral for years. With his donations and activities to aid in other sustainability measures like biodiversity and education, Pennicott Wilderness Adventures is a model for “Tasmanian Positive” tourism.
“We can make some hard decisions, knowing they’re right,” he says. “We can say no when something doesn’t fit. And, you know, people will come to Tasmania because we have something different and they’ll pay a premium. That’s our target market.”
Robert walks off his boat and runs across the pier. He gets down on his hands and knees and pulls a bit of trash from the water.
“The next generation won’t be in this camp or that camp, politically or otherwise,” he says. “It’s about the survival of the human species. And the planet. People want that good conscience and to travel responsibly. We’re doing this for our children’s children. I want to leave this world a better place for having operated a business in it and, and I try to live that every minute of every day.”
We worked with southern Tasmanian photographers Fred and Hannah and southern Tasmanian videographer The Human Story Films for this Tasmanian story.
You can find these images and more in our Tasmanian Partner Toolkit.
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