Brothers in $20m purchase as investor interest in islands rises
SYDNEY-based Oscars Hotel Group will pay close to $20m to purchase Long Island in the Whitsundays.
The hospitality group, founded in 1986, is owned and operated by brothers Bill and Mario Gravanis, who started the company with the acquisition of a single pub in Sydney’s inner west.
Oscars is now one of the largest hospitality groups in NSW with more than 30 venues, including Novotel Sydney Brighton Beach and Holiday Inn at Warwick Farm.
The company would not comment on the acquisition, which would be Oscars’ first in Queensland.
CBRE Hotels’ Hayley Manvell and Wayne Bunz struck the deal after an expressions of interest campaign and the Oscar Hotel Group is expected to embark on a major redevelopment of the island into an upmarket resort.
Long Island, between Hamilton Island and Airlie Beach, was sold by Sydney-based former investment banker David Kingston, a former managing director of Rothschild Bank.
The island has long been on the market with its resort facilities closed since the 2016 cyclone.
Ms Manvell said the Whitsundays has been a beneficiary of a rebound in domestic tourism, a trend which will become stronger in the future.
“The level of inquiry we are seeing for regional and leisure assets right now is at unprecedented levels,” she said.
“It’s also particularly encouraging to see domestic capital shifting out of their key markets, predominantly Melbourne and Sydney, and into other destinations they may not have had interest in.”
The sale comes as the Chinese owners of Daydream Island have put feelers out for a buyer for that iconic resort.