2017-04-11 P&E Agenda Attachment 1 to Item 1 Housing Needs Assessment

competing with residential uses), and these sites may not be well located for tourism
development.

Short Term Rental Accommodation Dwellings
The value of Short Term Rental Accommodation dwellings, the potential effect of limiting them,
but also the possible desirability of regulation has already been identified. The HRIA has identified
that Short Term Rental Accommodation can generate visitor occupancy year round to better
utilise the wasted resource of empty holiday homes, and can fill spare bedrooms created by
smaller households living in larger dwellings. They can also contribute to being able to meet the
insufficient accommodation for potential guests at events and festivals held in Noosa Shire.

This analysis suggests that Short Term Rental Accommodation may be important in meeting
visitor dwelling needs. Should this not be regulated, it is likely that significant natural growth in
the process will occur in line with trends in recent years. Possible increases in Short Term Rental
Accommodation have been estimated in Table 70; however given the experience of other major
tourist cities (such as London) it is possible that the growth will be even greater than the
conservative estimates made here.

Some of the future tourist accommodation and visitor dwelling needs may be met by residents
renting out spare capacity in their existing dwellings, facilitated by online platforms such as
AirBnB and Stayz. In 2016, at a non-peak period, around 1,700 dwelling listings were counted on
these two online platforms in Noosa Shire. Given that there may be some crossover between
these two sites, and also that there may be some dwellings listed on other sites that were not
considered, a figure of 1,500 dwellings used in this way was assumed for 2016. If it is assumed
that these listings grow by around 5% over each 5 year projection period, this reduces the
demand for additional tourist accommodation/visitor dwellings to 3,733 units/dwellings at 2036
(Table 70).

Overall Impact of Strategies to Meet Tourist/Visitor Needs
Secondary dwellings and short term rental dwellings may assist in meeting future visitor dwelling
needs. Based on the assumptions outlined above including ongoing annual growth in visitor
nights of 2.5% it is still projected that a need for some 250 tourist accommodation/visitor
dwellings could exist by the end of the projection period should ongoing growth in tourism
demand continue. This remains even given increased average annual occupancy in tourist
accommodation to 80% and visitor accommodation to 70%, and the assumptions discussed
about secondary dwellings and renting out spare capacity as Short Term Rental Accommodation.

Growth in tourist numbers may outstrip the supply of accommodation for tourists/visitors and
therefore this demand may ‘spill over’ into resident accommodation.




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