Harbour bridge climb company loses contract to new business

Tourism is a big business in Australia. The country has a lot of attractions. In Sydney, however, one of the biggest attraction is, of course, it’s harbour and going across the harbour is the famous Sydney harbour bridge. One of the biggest attractions in Sydney is to climb that bridge, and now it’s changed hands to a different company to give the tour.

BridgeClimb Sydney lost the bid to be the contractor again, so it’s changing hands to a new company called Hammons Holdings Pty Ltd. Hammons already does tours, however they are in the Blue Mountains and won the contract over BridgeClimb Sydney. It was a highly competitive process with 13 different companies interested in running the tours, and some were international tenders of very high quality.

The Road and Maritime Service explained that they would not be releasing the value of the contract under commercial confidence, but it looks as if they are going to be trusting the new company to handle things well. Prices for the climb are at $388 per person, meaning there is some serious money that could be made, especially considering how famous the climb is. The bridge is on a lot of peoples’ bucket lists, even in Australia, so it makes for a prime investment for Hammons.

Since 1998 over 3.5 million people have climbed the bridge including celebrities such as Oprah and Jamie Oliver and the original business was started after they helped organise the first climbs in 1989, so some are sad to see it go. The new company, however, wants to take a new approach using new technology to help tell the story of the bridge as it’s climbed.

The new company is also hoping to link the bridge climb with its Blue Mountains tours to help increase traffic flow between the two and drive to interest even higher. They expect that the interest will grow even more because of the decision. Paul Cave (The owner of BridgeClimb) stated that “It has been a privilege for us to make a hero of the bridge, and of every climber on every climb.” Paul is sad that he will no longer be able to fulfil people’s wishes with his own company.

Now, however, Hammon has a lot to live up to, considering in 20 years there has never been a serious injury it’s a pretty big goal to live up to. Hammon, however, believes that his company will be able to keep the Bridge climb just as exciting and safe if not more so.

Christian Woods
Christian Woods
Christian is a morning reporter and technology columnist for Best in Australia. Christian has worked in the media since 2000, in a range of locations. He joined Best in Australia in 2018, and began working in Melbourne in 2019.
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