Why this is Australia’s best public toilet

Australia’s best public toilet isn’t in some soaring skyscraper with views over Sydney Harbour from your cubicle.

It isn’t a space-age design that’s flush with features that do most of the dirty work for you.

No, it’s a humble bathroom at Brisbane Airport.

Commercial Insights: Subscribe to receive the latest news and updates

The public restroom at the airport’s international terminal was named ‘Australia’s Best Bathroom Facility’ at Total Facilities, Australia’s largest facilities management exhibition, beating out other private and public bathrooms from commercial buildings all over the country.

The bathroom features depictions of Australian native wildlife.

Brisbane Airport Corporation’s General Manager Assets, Krishan Tangri, says the bathroom is intended to give visitors a taste of Australian life from the instant they arrive.

Tangri says that if the first experience foreigners have after stepping off a plane is to venture into a toilet, it may as well be a positive one.

The bathroom’s extensive parents’ and babies’ facility.

“(It’s) the all-important first impression of our city, state and country,” Tangri says.

“When international travellers set foot in one of our newly refurbished bathrooms, they’re taken on an aspirational journey around Australia – before they’ve even left the airport,” he says.

“We embarked on a bold redevelopment of our terminal bathrooms to not only improve existing facilities and achieve compliance with new disability access legislation, but to also provide a unique visual experience different from other common public bathrooms.”

Toilet users can provide instant feedback through an interactive system.

The bathroom features large-scale wall photography, including depictions of the Queensland outback, native animals and iconic locations like the Daintree rainforest and Bondi Beach.

Then there are the state-of-the-art urinals, wash basins and hand dryers, as well as an interactive feedback system, which uses touch screens to allow toilet users to rate their experience before they leave.

Iconic Australian scenery features throughout the bathroom at Brisbane Airport.

“This allows us to gain valuable insights into customer experience at key service points throughout the airport and alerts BAC’s cleaning supervisors when facilities are determined to be unacceptable by customers – e.g. when three or more ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ customer responses are received in less than five minutes,” Tangri says.

Second place in the awards went to a toilet block in Victoria’s Arthur’s Seat State Park, Victoria, while the famous public bathrooms on level 35 of the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins were awarded third place.