A delegation of more than 2,000 conference participants descending on Adelaide late in September provided a significant boost to the city’s RevPAR, helping the City of Churches to a double-digit boost in the official hotel statistics, new data from STR reveals.
The city, which hosted the World Routes Conference from 21-24 September, saw a resulting 44% jump in Average Daily Rate and an overall 10.1% boost in RevPAR. The result was strong considering the prior corresponding month saw a similar conference held in the city, highlighting the importance of major events to Adelaide.
Nationally, nine of Australia’s ten measured markets continued to see room supply surpass demand. Of these markets, seven of the ten are seeing demand growth, but not at the level needed to return occupancy and ADR rates to healthy levels.
According to the STR data, both Brisbane and Hobart witnessed strong months. The Queensland capital is seeing new demand come into the city but was helped even further by only a 0.2% improvement in new rooms coming online. This temporary slump in supply was the first time since February 2014 where the new room growth rate closed at less than 1%.
Ongoing strength in demand for rooms in Hobart provided further reassurance to investors that traveller numbers can be sustained as new hotels open and room supply catches up from 2020.
Across the Tasman in New Zealand, RevPAR continues to track around 3% lower than a year earlier due to a slight dip in demand while room growth records moderate growth. Occupancy for the month remained strong at 79.8% despite Auckland’s convention centre being impacted by the recent storm damage and events needing to be moved at late notice.