DISCUSSION: Where are Australia’s most expensive hotels?
Sydney, according to the latest STR Global figures. Perth has lost its crown, but why? accomnews deliberates with 8hotels CEO and boutique hotel developer Paul Fischmann.
The country’s largest city has climbed its way back to the top as Australia’s most expensive hotel market after being outperformed by Perth for six years.
Average hotel occupancy rates rose to 84 per cent in Sydney during the 12 months leading up to March 2015 and its average room rate advanced to $203 per night, according to STR Global.
In the same timeframe, Perth’s occupancy declined to 83 per cent and room rates slid to almost $200 a night.
accomnews spoke exclusively to renowned boutique hotel developer Paul Fischmann recently, in an interview you can read in the latest issue of Accom Management Guide, and he shed some interesting light on why the prices might be shifting.
While Perth hotel rates have soared in recent years due to the mining boom and occupancy peaked at 90 per cent in 2012, there has since been a slowdown.
Mr Fischmann confirmed: “At the moment I’m keen on Sydney and Melbourne but I’m not keen on Brisbane, Perth or Canberra.
According to STR Global’s data, Melbourne recorded solid occupancy and room rate growth while Brisbane and Canberra were both in decline over the last year.
Mr Fischmann said: “I think Brisbane is going to be massively oversupplied. In my view they are definitely building too many hotels in Brisbane. I think the government made a mistake by touting the virtue of more, more, more hotel development! They over-did it without actually understanding the metrics and I think the mining and resources boom got in the way of their understanding of the market.
“Perth has obviously been affected by the mining. It is very similar to Brisbane but I don’t think quite as bad because there’s marginally less new stock going into Perth compared to Brisbane. There’s quite a few hotels that are going to be build in Perth over the next few years that’ll just make the market quite soft for a while.
“I also think the council encouraged more development during a period where hotels were booming in Brisbane but they underestimated how intense the slowdown would actually be.
“I believe the mining boom brought Brisbane back down to where it was before, which was definitely a growing and fantastic city but they sped up development too quickly and people are going to really suffer over the next couple of years.”
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