Visitor counts a shock
THE Commonwealth Games will not be putting up the full house sign with accommodation bookings currently hovering just above 70 per cent.
City councillors are in shock after a full briefing on the latest figures yesterday by tourism chiefs at an events, tourism and governance committee meeting.
Hoteliers are being urged to drop inflated prices and a new promotion strategy is being rolled out to target Brisbane to get the drive market to book on the Glitter Strip.
Committee chairman Bob La Castra, when advised of the figures, told the meeting: “I’m surprised it’s sitting at 70 per cent. It’s just the strategy has backfired. You’d expect it to be better.”
Gold Coast Tourism Bureau director of corporate affairs and strategy Dean Gould when addressing councillors said he was hopeful of a late surge in bookings. But he admitted some hoteliers who had “sat on rooms hoping to get El Dorado sort of prices found that was not the case”.
The Games was a premium event but attempting to charge three to four times the hotel rate would never work. Rooms for a family are now as low as $300 a night.
Outside the chamber, Mr Gould said a sample of forward bookings for the Games showed occupancy was at 70.6 per cent.
“We had an absolute cracking summer, it was 83.4 per cent. The average for the Gold Coast is 72 per cent. We’re expecting to go above average,” he told the Bulletin.
“Somewhere between 83 per cent and 72 per cent would be a success for us. We’ve been saying this to our industry, occupancy doesn’t get to 100 per cent – 83 per cent is quite full.”
About one-third of visitors are expected to arrive from Brisbane, a quarter from the Coast, 10 per cent from overseas with the rest from interstate. The big challenge for tourism promoters is to turn around the two entrenched views from Games preparations – that the Pacific Motorway will be a disaster zone and room rates are a rip-off.
“We’re trying to address that now with our marketing campaign into Brisbane,” Mr Gould said.
Tourism leaders also admit that figures for Easter are “scratchy” and will launch a post-Games campaign.
Caroline Buckley, manager of the Bayview Beach Holiday Apartments, said she was bracing for the worst Easter holiday period in a decade.
“It’s just heartbreaking,” she said of the negative impact the Games has had on bookings.
“Any other year we would have been completely booked out for Easter and the school holidays by December. Instead, we’ve got four bookings for the Commonwealth Games and half the apartments remain vacant for Easter.”