S'pose this is news...
Hotel in Brisbane? Sorry there's no vacancy
Emma Chalmers
BRISBANE hotels made good use of their no vacancy signs last year as the city enjoyed the fourth highest occupancy rate in the world, outside North America.
In the annual HotelBenchmark report by business analyst Deloitte, Brisbane was ranked behind only Dubai, Hurghada (Egypt) and Hong Kong in a survey of 165 cities across the world.
Last year, Brisbane hotels had an 82.5 per cent occupancy rate to come in ahead of all other Australian cities as well as Tokyo, London, Christchurch, Singapore and Gatwick.
According to the report, Brisbane's hotel occupancy rate rose 16.2 per cent in the last four years and grew 5 per cent on figures from 2003, the year the Rugby World Cup was played in Australia.
Sydney was the next best performing Australian city and it came in at 18th on the list with an occupancy rate of 77.9 per cent, only just in front of Perth which was in the 20th spot with a hotel occupancy rate of 77.8 per cent.
Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said Brisbane's result would have been encouraged by increased conventions, events and leisure travel which was enhanced by our top-notch facilities.
"I think the quality of those really is what underpinned that strong growth and it's also supported and partly driven by the increased aviation connections that we have and the support we get from, for example, Brisbane Airport Corporation, which is really driving business into Brisbane and through Brisbane, and it's also of course the leisure market," he said.
Mr Gschwind said while the report might suggest there is room for more hotels in Brisbane, the industry would have to act cautiously to ensure that the existing hotels could sustain their business.
"It obviously does also then raise the question if we need more capacity and we'll see a couple of properties come on line, like at South Bank," he said.
"As usual we want to make sure we get it right and we don't overcook it and we make sure that businesses who are already here can maintain occupancy and importantly can maintain room rates."