
Industry welcomes AO Grand Slam visitor influx to Melbourne
Accommodation Australia (Victoria) General Manager, Dougal Hollis reinforced the importance of major events as critical demand drivers to help fill city hotels
Accommodation Australia has welcomed projections of record fan attendance levels to the Australian Open 2025, set to drive an increase up to 10 per cent in Melbourne city hotel room bookings, across main tournament days.
Accommodation Australia (Victoria) General Manager, Dougal Hollis reinforced the importance of major events as critical demand drivers to help fill city hotels, while projecting ‘brand Melbourne’ and Victoria to a global audience.
“Event-related occupancy forecasts are particularly impressive, given STR and JLL report Melbourne has welcomed 81 new hotels and over 5200 rooms in the five-year period between 2019 and 2024, with another 2000 rooms still to come.
“This cumulative growth represents a circa 33 percent increase in Melbourne hotel stocks, obviously generating more hotel rooms to be filled.
Mr Hollis said “Although the entire city is benefiting, CBD hotels most proximate to the Melbourne Park tennis precinct are typically forecasting to be busier than those further away. The AO middle weekend (18-19 January) is currently exhibiting the strongest occupancy forecasts, in the mid-high 80 percent range, significantly ahead of 2024 levels (early-mid 70 percent range).”
Newly appointed Accommodation Australia (Victoria) Advisory Group Chair, Peter Minatsis notes Melbourne’s luxury hotel market is expected to perform well across the tournament.
“Strong demand is apparent from the North American market, with hotel suite bookings popular. This is perhaps unsurprising, given current favourable exchange rates, when comparing the value of the Australian dollar to the United States dollar.
“Many hoteliers have also developed AO-themed activations within their properties, to enable guests to continue their event experience pre-and-post travelling to Melbourne Park.”
Conversely, Melbourne occupancies across February 2025 are currently tracking seven per cent down on 2024 levels, appreciating this period last year coincided with hugely popular Taylor Swift and Pink music concerts.

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