Without the added driver of Melbourne’s strong business events sector over the holiday season, record attendances at the Australian Open from January 12 to February 1 saw hotel occupancies up 2.6 per cent to 75.1 per cent, with the average daily rate (ADR) rising 5.9 per cent to $261.66 and revenue per available room (RevPAR) up 8.6 per cent to $296.60.
Melbourne’s hotel performance has lagged over recent years, following the opening of thousands of new hotel rooms, however, Accor Pacific COO, Adrian Williams, speaking to micenet at the Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Event (AIME) said customer demand remained strong.
“We’ve got the Grand Prix…in a couple of weeks. That will be full. You won’t be able to get a hotel room, I suspect, over the Grand Prix. And that says that there’s not an oversupply, but we do need demand on the non-event days.
“We’re seeing a lot of confidence in that area, year-on-year growth of 19 per cent, so I think we’ll see demand catch up to supply pretty quickly in Melbourne,” Williams said.
Nationally Accommodation Australia’s latest hotel performance report revealed Hobart had the best January hotel occupancy around Australia, at 88 per cent, up 1.2 per cent year-on-year. The best city for average rates was the Gold Coast, which recorded ADR of $385.89, up 6.4 per cent and RevPAR of $287.10, up 0.7 per cent.
Bucking the trend was Brisbane, which despite having its Australian Open lead-in tournament, the Brisbane International, from January 4 to 11, saw occupancy of only 66.7 per cent, down 2.1 per cent year-on-year, ADR of $218.21, down 2.9 per cent, and RevPAR at $145.91, down 4.9 per cent.
Perth and Adelaide both recorded improved performance across key indicators.
Perth’s occupancy of 75.9 per cent was up 0.2 per cent, ADR of $254.05 was up 7.8 per cent and RevPAR of $192.91 was 7.5 per cent up on the same period last year.
Adelaide recorded occupancy of 74 per cent, up 6.1 per cent, ADR of $201, up 3.4 per cent, and did almost 10 per cent better on RevPAR, with the metric sitting at $148.82.
