“It was amazing…my grandfather was very involved in the Cup and it was wild,” she says of the time when Freo hosted the international yacht teams and hotels and restaurants were overflowing. Her grandfather was John Fitzhardinge, past Commodore of Cup defenders at Royal Perth Yacht Club.
Fitzhardinge says those heady days are returning to her city following a massive investment of more than $2.4 billion to restore historic assets and build new developments that, on completion, will boost visitor numbers beyond the current one million a year and build the business events sector well beyond its average of about 250 events a year.
Currently the city has 800 hotel rooms and suggests it can comfortably manage events from 100 to 1,000 delegates.
Its first new five-star hotel build in many decades is the Garde Hotel, due to open in mid-2025 within a heritage precinct offering 106 rooms. This comprises 83 tailored luxury rooms and suites, with access to 23 rooms in the adjacent Warders Cottages built in 1851.
There’s a buzz about this new development and some of its already-opened venues are drawing a crowd, such as Emily Taylor’s restaurant, a space known as Sailing for Oranges and the Warners Hotel, each catering for events of up to 250 cocktail.
The largest plenary in Fremantle, of about 1,000, is available at the Esplanade Hotel.
The city spent more than $270 million transforming what was King’s Square into Walyalup Koort, a name preferred by both Traditional Owners and the broad community, which means ‘Heart of Fremantle’. The area is now a large paved event space bordered by a redeveloped civic centre in place of an old department store.
Another project currently in planning is a multi-million-dollar redevelopment of the Fremantle football ground into an outdoor venue for up to 18,000, together with some indoor event spaces.
Fitzhardinge acknowledges Fremantle relies currently on winning 10 per cent of its business events through the activities of Business Events Perth. She even admits they “borrowed” the bureau’s director of business development, Caitlin Skinner, recently. However she says they are not going it alone or trying to compete against Perth, but continue to work closely.
“I think the overall objective for everyone involved in tourism and in events in Perth is to bring more events to Western Australia. We know that by bringing people to Fremantle, they will also enjoy a day in Perth. They’ll also enjoy a day in the Swan Valley. They’ll probably head over to Rottnest [Island] and meet some quokkas…so it’s the sentiment that a rising tide lifts all boats.”
Although she was in primary school in the mid-80s, Fitzhardinge remembers the days the city was booming well.
“I’d say the data actually says that we are back there,” she says.
“We went through a period, and I think a lot of people sort of talked about the decline of Fremantle, the slump, you know, the sort of dark years. What was going on during that time was a lot of work around really changing our planning system so we were able to do some more exciting things in the city.”
