Objection to Noosa Civic development application - MCU23_0078 CCPL 121223

exceedance of the preferred building height for the site. This is also a major conflict with the planning
scheme and directly relates to the significant scale of the proposed cinemas.

CCPL has reviewed the submitted economic assessment, particuarly section 6.2. The following concerns are
noted with the assessment:

    •      The economic assessment significantly overestimates historical and current cinema occupancy
           rates for the existing Noosa 5 Cinemas. The table below includes 10 years of occupancy rates for
           the Noosa 5 Cinemas and demonstrates that the existing cinemas have significant spare capacity;




    •      The economic assessment overstates future cinema attendances. Screen Australia data identifies
           that the pre-pandemic average cinema visitation was 3.55 visits per year over the six (6) years to
           2019 1. This reduced to 3.3 visits per year in 2019 and then plummeted to 1.1-2.2 visits per year in
           2020-2022. According to the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (MPDAA),
           visitations were still only 2.2 visits per year in the 2022 calander year, or 32% below pre-Covid
           years. The cinema industry expects visitations for the 2023 calendar year to remain 30%
           below 2019 levels. These figures indicate that there will be a slow recovery due to many factors
           including film industry disruptions, delays in movie production and the increasing impact of online
           streaming services.

    •      The economic assessment applies a 25% tourism “loading” in addition to inflated assumed local
           average visitation levels. The 25% tourism loading is not a reasonable assumption and is far too
           high to be representative of the Noosa market. Any loading applied should be in the range of 2-
           13% for the Noosa region based on comparable markets with high inbound tourism rates.

    •      The economic assessment utilises the retail catchment trade area to define the trade area for the
           proposed cinemas. This catchment area is extremely large, extending approximately 30-40
           kilometres from the site, well beyond Cooroy, Pomona and Cooran. CCPL consider this defined



    1
        https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/fact-finders/cinema/industry-trends/historical-admissions