Among them are the accolades. At the recent 2013 HM Awards in Sydney, a ceremony recognising the accommodation industry’s finest staff, properties, brands and chains across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, Seargeant was inducted into the HM Awards Hall of Fame.

QT Port Douglas, the the second resort for the brand (following QT Gold Coast’s launch late 2011) was a finalist in the Resort and Regional Property categories. Seargeant’s third, the recently opened flagship Harbour City hotel, QT Sydney, took home three HM Awards – New Hotel, Hotel Interior Design, and Tech Hotel.

Seargeant, aged in his early 60s, has more than 10 years of CEO experience behind him. Yet the man World of CEOs and BoardEx puts in the same league as McDonalds President and CEO Don Thompson, and Sheldon Adelson, Chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, shows no signs of slowing down.

Just before the recent Australian ski season, AHL remodeled and re-launched the Quay West Falls Creek Resort and Spa in Victoria’s ski fields as QT Falls Creek. The company will re-launch a refurbished Rydges as QT Canberra in February 2014, recently received development approval for the same in Perth, and is working on developing QT-branded properties on Melbourne’s Russell Street, in Queenstown, New Zealand, and in Thredbo, in the New South Wales Snowy Mountains.

The Newsport spoke exclusively to Seargeant during his recent visit to Port Douglas.

The Newsport: Do you feel confident Far North Queensland was the right choice for you and the QT brand?

David Seargeant: It's been really important, in order to get strong recognition of the brand, to have a number of really key locations quite quickly. So we set out to achieve two really defining resorts, one on the Gold Coast and one [in Port Douglas], to really set the standard for the QT brand in the resort sense. And now, with the addition of QT Sydney as a city hotel and flagship for the brand, we're ideally positioned to leverage off those and rein in other territories.

TNP: Would you agree there’s a sense of optimism about the future in Port Douglas?

DS: You can feel it. I think the domestic market has led the recovery for Port, so this season's really strong.

It's not just leisure and business, it's also conference - people are rediscovering Port as a conference destination, which is really important. The way the dollar's going, that's certainly had an impact on the domestic market; Australians are a little more cautious now about travelling outside of Australia and are holidaying within Australia [instead]. But as time goes on, [and] with a softer dollar, we hope to then rekindle some demand out of inbound markets.

We're already seeing some critical and encouraging growth out of China; it's very early days, but I think everyone should start to feel confident about that growth. With some of the other incentive markets like the US and Japan, we need to have some growth there to really recover.

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         “I think there's a lot to be optimistic about with 

       Port and its future.”

TNP: What about QT Port Douglas?

DS: I think we've really just got to build on what a great place we've already got, it's so important to be connected locally, to the local [Port Douglas] community. That's why we focus so heavily on promoting the hotel or resort locally, because if we get locals in, it's their word of mouth; they're going to tell visitors where to go at night, so it feeds off that.

We'd like to attract a lot more conference business, we're quite happy with the Moonlight Cinema - we lose money, we've lost money for the two years we've operated it here, but this year was less. So we'd like to think if we can get more support locally for that, it is a facility that brings current release movies to Port Douglas - that's important. So we need to promote that a bit harder and get some more support for that.

TNP: What’s the secret to the QT brand’s success?

DS: QT-branded resorts are known as the place to be. I think hotels are about creating energy and excitement, and having events on all the time. To do that, you've got to be very active with what you're putting on, and have people in your public places – your restaurants and bars - all the time.

QT is all about the design, creating that funky look that encourages the right people - people that love to have fun and party. It's really a key part of the brand. And we connect with them socially, via social media. Also, the right staff; the staff make it.

I've been in the hotel business all my life and I think it's all about the detail. You can't ever forget how a guest will look at a resort or a hotel, and you've really got to look through their eyes. It's all about creating a fun experience, and having great staff who are across the detail.

QT Port Douglas is gearing up for the party season, with upcoming events celebrating Halloween, Melbourne Cup, Movember, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Keep checking The Newsport for updates.