FACED with a severe room crunch, Western Australia is taking steps to add hotel capacity in the capital city of Perth, while also working on spreading tourism to the rest of the state, aided by new airport developments.
Due to a mining boom and an influx of corporate travellers, hoteliers in Perth are enjoying dizzying rates and occupancies to the tune of a three-star room priced at A$300 (US$303), said one inbound tour operator, who cited the example of a “short-sighted” motel who wanted to cease room allotments.
Hyatt Regency Perth director of sales, Matthew Talbot, said the average rate at his hotel was poised to increase by 25 to 30 per cent this year.
“For the last 20 years we’ve worked on a flat leisure rate all through the year but now we’ve broken it down to a weekday and weekend rate,” he said, explaining that leisure visitors were now encouraged to arrive on Fridays.
Late last year, Western Australian became the only state to offer hotel development incentives, as the government “recognised that there was a failure in the market despite very favourable trading conditions”, said Tourism Western Australia CEO, Stephanie Buckland. These include the provision of Crown land at reduced market rates, flexible floor space bonuses and infrastructure grants. A prime site released is the downtown Fire Emergency Services Authority House.
Meanwhile, forthcoming inventory is set to ease the situation slightly, with three new hotels scheduled to open their doors later this year, namely the 236-room Fraser Suites Perth, the 56-room Quincy Boutique Hotel and 12-suite Terrace Hotel. Coming soon will also be an Aman hotel with over 40 rooms.
As part of a wider strategy to attract more leisure tourists to other parts of the state, new events are also being lined up such as the inaugural Margaret River Gourmet Escape in November, which will see the likes of Heston Blumenthal and Rene Redzepi attending.
In order to make the rest of the region more accessible, Buckland said the two priorities were the potential redevelopment of the Busselton airport in the southern wine region, and the establishment of international flights to Broome, the northern gateway to the Kimberley. Feasibility studies are being conducted for the former, with the intention for it to receive flights from the east coast and eventually, international ones. For the latter, which is already capable of handling international services, a link from Singapore is being targeted.
She added that financial incentives would be typically dangled, such as cooperative marketing funds and airport concessions.
