Appendix A - Economic Impact Assessment.pdf

                                                                Noosa Springs Luxury Hotel Economic Impact Assessment
                                                                                                          Final Report

4.3 Recent and Future Visitor Trends
The COVID-19 crisis and subsequent border closures at a national and state level have severely
impacted the Noosa accommodation market. On an annual basis, 2019-20 demand fell 20%, ending
a number of years of strong growth. The annual occupancy rate fell from an annual rate of 76% to
61%. One reason why these falls were not greater is the strong trading conditions for the traditional
Christmas and new year season.
Figure 4.6. Room Nights Sold and Occupancy Rates, Noosa

                         1,200,000                                                          90%
                                                                                            80%
                         1,000,000
                                                                                            70%
Room Nights Sold (No.)




                                                                                                  Occupancy Rate (%)
                          800,000                                                           60%
                                                                                            50%
                          600,000
                                                                                            40%
                          400,000                                                           30%
                                                                                            20%
                          200,000
                                                                                            10%
                                0                                                           0%
                                     2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

                                             Room Nights Sold              Occupancy (%)
Note: Year ending June.
Source: STR (2020); Lucid Economics

In order to better understand the future supply and demand balance of accommodation in Noosa, a
range of modelling and analysis were conducted. To better understand the potential impacts of the
COVID-19 border closures, analysis and modelling conducted by Dransfield (Dransfield, 2020) has
been used, which considers the lost demand for the Australian hotel market through the closure of
international borders as well as the likely increase in domestic travel based on the continued closure
of the international borders. The analysis was conducted based on financial years.
Additionally, consideration was also given to the second wave of COVID-19 in Australia and the
Queensland border closure for those living in identified COVID-19 hotspots. Initially, the Melbourne
metropolitan region was declared a hot spot and since, all of Victoria and New South Wales have
been declared hot spots (and remain closed to Queensland at the time of publication).
It should be noted that based on information from Tourism Research Australia (TRA, 2020), visitors
from Victoria and New South Wales contribute more visitor nights to Noosa than international
visitors. Victoria and New South Wales contributed 46% of visitor nights in the year ending March
2020, while international visitors contributed 20%. Visitors from Sydney and Melbourne alone
contributed 29% of visitor nights in Noosa and these markets have grown substantially over the last
two years.
Future demand after 2022 has been estimated based on regression analysis using a linear trend. It
should be noted that the resultant annual growth is below historical growth over the last decade
(pre-COVID).




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