Hotel room occupancies are expected to reach their highest levels for several decades by 2014, driven up by rising international visitor numbers and continued growth in the domestic business sector, new research has revealed.
The Deloitte Access Economics Tourism and Hotel Marketing Outlook for Q1 2012 predicted that occupancies would rise from 65% in 2012 to 68% by the end of 2014.
Spokesman Lachlan Smirl revealedthat room rates were also expected to rise over the same period by an average annual growth rate of 3.8%, to reach an average $150 by the end of 2012, and climb to $160 by the end of 2014.
“Particularly in capital city CBDs, hotels have continued to perform strongly,” he said. “Business travel demand is up, and the gains on that front have been sufficient to encourage operators to edge up room rates.”
But Smirl warned of the divergence between tightening CBD markets and softer conditions in regional areas, highlighting the problems this posed for other tourism sectors.
“With the pipeline of hotel investment looking modest, the challenge of ensuring a sustainable level of capacity while not unduly undermining returns to existing investors will be increasingly important for the industry over coming years,” he said.
Hotel occupancies to keep on rising
