Across the 12,095 rooms which make up Accor’s portfolio of hotels, resorts and apartments in the Sunshine state, occupancy sat at 70.7 per cent for the year.
However, in Brisbane’s city centre, occupancy grew significantly more than the state average – by 4.6 per cent, as a result of rising demand across both corporate and leisure, while in Cairns, occupancy was up by seven points driven by both leisure and group business.
Brisbane will also benefit from higher occupancy through the rest of the year – up by 2.8 per cent, with events and sport driving higher demand this month and next.
Meanwhile Cairns is up by 3.9 occupancy points for the rest of the year with demand spread across all visitor segments, including business events. The Gold Coast in particular is seeing higher group demand, with occupancy up 3.8 points.
Accor notes the variety of new or additional international services that flew into Queensland over the last financial year, including 10 new routes into Brisbane, and the return of services from Shanghai and Hong Kong to Cairns, along with more capacity from Singapore and a new flight from Indonesia.
“The financial difficulties experienced by domestic carriers this year have clearly impacted travel to some Queensland destinations, but we are encouraged by increases in international airline capacity into Brisbane, Cairns and the Gold Coast, which bodes well for Queensland tourism and the performance of our hotels in 2024-25,” said Accor Pacific’s COO, Adrian Williams
“International inbound has finally begun to recover most of the lost ground over the past four years, and with substantial increases in direct international flights into Queensland airports confirmed, we are confident of accelerated growth in inbound business for our hotels in the year ahead.
“While corporate travel is yet to recover fully, domestic leisure travel has shown great resilience in destinations such as the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, while Cairns has enjoyed an outstanding winter season.
“Brisbane continues to be one of Australia’s best performing cities, built on its top-class events calendar and complemented by the city’s ever-increasing reputation for dining, entertainment and lifestyle attractions.”
Williams is expecting more to come.
“It is only eight years until the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, so we can anticipate major activity around infrastructure development in the coming years, which will stimulate both domestic and international arrivals to the city, as well as to Olympic co-hosts, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.”
Accor has a new property opening in Queensland before the calendar year is out – Peppers Gladstone, which will be Central Queensland’s first ever five-star property when it opens in October.
