Limited supply pushes up Sydney hotel rates
Sydney hotel rates are soaring.
Prices have surged 9 per cent in the first quarter, the biggest jump since 1996.
Flight Centre data shows limited supply has seen Sydney hotel occupancies now sitting higher than London, New York and Hong Kong.
Flight Centre’s business consulting division, 4th dimension, has numbers showing nightly rates in Sydney hotels have surged to an average of $270 in the first quarter.
And hotel occupancies have averaged a sizeable 90 per cent.
“Sydney is now one of the highest-occupied accommodation markets in the world,” Flight Centre Corporate Traveller general manager Jess Anscombe told The Australian.
Figures from Dransfield Hotels & Resorts show that Sydney hotels now boast the second-highest revenues per available room forecasts of any major city. Sydney hotels have a medium-term forecast of 6.8 per cent growth, rivalling tourism-mecca Cairns which has an 8.3 per cent growth forecast.
Melbourne, by way of contrast, has a more modest 4.7 per cent revenue per available room forecast for the medium term.
Accor chief operating officer Simon McGrath expected events would ensure international arrivals and domestic travellers would be high, ensuring rates would remain solid across the city.
“We are seeing rate growth in the Sydney market. We put it down to the launch of the International Convention Centre, to the strong inbound business with international arrivals up and a strong domestic traveller, all underpinned by sporting events such as the soccer and the Vivid Festival coming altogether,” Mr McGrath told The Australian.
The rate of growth has been nothing short of spectacular.
According to Langham Hospitality Group vice president sales Simon Manning, room rates had jumped 60 per cent in just two and a half years 2 and a half years following the renovation of his luxury Sydney hotel.
Indeed, he told The Australian travellers would find it 35-50 per cent cheaper to stay in an airport hotel than a Sydney CBD hotel.
by Leon Gettler, August 3rd 2017
