2022-11-14 GC Agenda - Item 4 - Attachment 1 - Short Term Accommodation Monitoring Report 2022

Source: Tourism Noosa Annual Report 2019/2020

The 2019/20 TNR stated that the annual decrease came through the June quarter when
domestic and international borders were closed due to COVID-19 restrictions. Borders were
closed in Queensland from 3 April and non-essential travel was then banned. Day trips (with
no overnight stay) were allowed early May for up to 50km extended to 150km mid May.
Overnight travel was permitted from 1 June. The June quarter (three months only), felt the
impacts of COVID -19 and compared with the same period, the 2019, 2019/20 TNR showed
the following decreases for the 3 month period:
• Domestic overnight visitors: -65.4% (interstate visitation -97%, intrastate visitation -44.2%).
• Day trip visitors: -53.4%.
Further, .Id community Demographic Resources identified there were 3,582,686 domestic
visitor nights and 698,151 international visitor nights in Noosa Shire, with an additional
1,060,901 domestic day trips for the 2019/2020 year. This was down from the 2018/2019 year
of 3,950,072, 976,2017 and 1,288,879 respectively, a result of COVID-19 restrictions.


2.9.3.1 Tourist accommodation
The early impacts of COVID-19 restrictions, particularly international and domestic state
border closures from March, directly impacted the tourist accommodation sector. With
domestic visitor nights down by 65.4% and international borders closed, the take up of tourist
accommodation of all types was also down. In addition, 1,755 job losses were identified in the
accommodation and food sectors.
Restaurants were required to shut down in-house dining with only takeaway options available.
Restaurants re-opened with greatly reduced seating capacity in June/ July, with full capacity
much later.
There was no specific data breakdown on how this affected tourist accommodation other than
assuming a relationship between the reduction in visitor numbers and take up of
accommodation, which was significant particularly in the March -Jun 2020 quarter following
the initial lockdowns.
From the spike in availability of rental accommodation in April 2020 shown in section 2.9.4.1
below, following the lockdowns, and from an increase in “for lease” signs, some short-term
accommodation moved temporarily into the permanent rental pool, whilst most probably
remained vacant for 2-3 months.
Anecdotally it was also known that the internal migration of people from other states into
Queensland and the ability to work from home saw some of the vacant short-term
accommodation taken up and vacancy in the rental market taken up for longer temporary stays
greater than 3 months. Returning expats taking up temporary residence in holiday homes or
rentals was also experienced.



                                                                                           pg. 73
Noosa Council Monitoring Report 2022/23