Melbourne has leapfrogged Sydney to become the country’s biggest hotel market for the first time on the back of an “unprecedented” building boom that has delivered nearly 5000 new hotel rooms since 2020.
With a further 1800 hotel rooms under constructions in both cities, Melbourne is expected to end the current growth cycle with almost 27,500 rooms, while Sydney will have about 24,400.Melbourne’s surge ahead of Sydney comes as the Victorian capital also surpassed its NSW rival as the country’s most populous city in April.
Adelaide and the Gold Coast have also expanded their accommodation offering noticeably since the start of the pandemic, according to JLL’sHowever, while travellers to Melbourne now have the biggest choice of hotel rooms in the country, from an investor and operator perspective Sydney remains the best performing of the two cities.Latest figures from analysts STR show that over the first six months of the year, Sydney recorded an average occupancy rate of 74.
Richard Crawford, vice president of hotel development in Australia, NZ and Pacific for Marriott, said the expansion of its presence in Melbourne to 11 hotels was all about “being where our guests want to be” and investing in locations with “unique demand drivers”. This view is shared by hotel developer Mohan Du, whose Capital Alliance has completed four new hotels in Melbourne’s Docklands since 2016 and this month secured approval for
“Investor interest in the hotel sector remains relatively high, but selective, especially in the current environment as a hedge against inflation,” JLL said in its report.