Plenty of room at the inns

Big tranche of hotel rooms freed up for Games

A THIRD of Gold Coast hotel rooms remain up for grabs 47 days from the Commonwealth Games, after organisers released scores of rooms they booked but don’t need.

Games organisers (GOLDOC) reserved large tranches of accommodation across the Coast, including all cabins and villas at council-controlled tourist parks from Jacobs Well to Southport.

Dozens of those villas, including several in the Broadwater Caravan Park close to several venues, are now listed online as available.

Gold Coast Tourist Parks manager Adam Spencer said the vacancies would not last long. “The parks are already at more than 85 per cent capacity for Games time”, he said.

Booking site Wotif, which listed the city as 95 per cent booked out last March, now lists the city occupancy at 90 per cent. Official data is less encouraging, with most recent industry surveys for hotels, apartments and room-sharing services like Airbnb showing forward bookings for April 4-15 running at 66.5 per cent occupancy.

Bookings in the lead-up to the Games, from March 19 to April 3, are far lower at 37 per cent, while occupancy falls away to just 20 per cent from April 16-30.

Gold Coast Tourism CEO Martin Winter said the current lower volume of forward bookings was “not cause to gnash our teeth”.

“We know that the most common booking period is only two to four weeks out from travel, so we have a way to go yet,” he said. “The medium and longer-term benefit of the massive exposure of the Games will offset one-off periods that are temporarily softer.”

A GOLDOC spokesman said: “GOLDOC is only responsible for assisting with the accommodation for Games constituents including accredited media, sponsors and Games family. Working with accommodation providers, GOLDOC has released rooms well ahead of its obligation enabling those rooms to be added to the market at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Mr Winter said to have 65 per cent occupancy through forward bookings by January was “a solid figure”.

“The Gold Coast annual average is 71.6 per cent so it is already moving towards that.

“Nobody ever expects 100 per cent occupancy but it will climb much higher than it was in January. We always want the best for the Gold Coast and our members but we are also realistic – there are many factors that impact accommodation bookings.”

Mr Winter said there was likely to be a last-minute uplift in bookings as people finalised plans.

A spokesman for Mantra Group said GOLDOC had prepaid for bookings for a number of rooms across its Coast properties, and had confirmed the exact number it needed late last year, allowing extra rooms to be released.

Gold Coast Tourism last year had to go after rogue booking sites which falsely advertised room rates of up to $10,000 a night and accused some operators of holding back on releasing rooms so they could charge higher rates.

Gold Coast Tourism data shows accommodation in the city last April achieved 70.7 per cent occupancy rate.