Bundaberg breaks 20-year hotel drought with 97-room, 4.5-star development
Construction is under way on a 97-room hotel opposite Bundaberg Airport, the first significant short-term accommodation project in the Queensland city in 20 years.
The three-storey, 4.5-star property on Airport Drive is due to be finished by mid-2027, with the first guests expected later next year. Developer MVP said it would refresh the hospitality offering in the city, which sits four hours north of Brisbane and is a key gateway to the southern Great Barrier Reef. The project is funded by investor MyState Limited and is expected to create about 50 ongoing jobs.
Mayor Helen Blackburn said the region had long struggled with a shortage of rooms.
“The hotel demand study showed us that we were 800 beds short every night in our region,” she said.
“This is just one step towards bridging that gap.”
Older motels deterred developers
Cr Blackburn said attracting hotel developers had been difficult because of the region’s ageing motel stock.
“Those older motels sell their rooms at a cheaper rate, which then doesn’t give investors the confidence to think that if they build a new hotel, they can get the price for the rooms that they need,” she said.
MyState Limited chief executive Brett Morgan said demand for the project was clear.
“Every time you go down the street in Bundaberg, there’s no-vacancy signs everywhere,” he said.
An MVP spokesperson said the company hoped the hotel would become a drawcard for visitors.
“We hope that it will be a destination of choice for travellers to the region and will bring more travellers to the region,” the spokesperson said.
Hopes for more operators and airlines
Bundaberg Tourism chief executive Duncan Littler said the hotel would cater to both leisure and business travellers, noting the region already attracts more than 750,000 visitors a year who stay for more than two million nights.
“We hope that investments like this will also encourage other [tourism] operators, potentially even airlines, to consider investing in the region,” he said.
Other accommodation applications are in the pipeline.
Jonathan Jackson, 19th October, 2026
