Accommodation Australia (AA) is calling for greater supports for the sector to combat persistent challenges ahead of a looming federal election.
With the industry grappling with a variety of issue including stagnant international tourist levels – remaining at 88% of pre-pandemic levels – staffing struggles and the impact of cost-of-living pressures on Australians, AA has crafted a roadmap to return to pre-pandemic profitability.
As part of its pre-budget submission, Accommodation Australia has outlined 24 recommendations across six broad categories, including skills, migration, tourism, short term rental reforms, energy, tax, and small business support measures.
“Our sector is predicted to grow by 59,400 jobs in the next five years and we can barely keep up with staffing as it is,” said Accommodation Australia CEO James Goodwin.
“We need changes to skilled visas and rules around Working Holiday Makers, but more importantly we need help getting young Australians into the industry.
“We need to increase employer incentives for food trade apprentices and to re-introduce hospitality traineeship incentives.”
While Goodwin says major events and seasonal boosts have provided “sugar hits”, this is not enough to sustain the industry amid current challenges.
“Operating and compliance costs have risen dramatically, and the data indicates that these are increasingly being absorbed by the hotels and motels,” said Goodwin.
“Overall, the picture for the accommodation sector is one of recovery but there is uncertainty about the future, and we want to ensure whoever is in government, our needs and the needs of our workforce are laid out front and centre.”
Goodwin is also calling for more funding for Tourism Australia, more robust airline competition, and a national framework for the regulation of short-term rental accommodation (STRA), like AirBNB and Stayz.
“At a minimum this should include the registration of all short term rental properties, a cap of 90 days per year with scope for local governments to impose lower caps and DA approval for properties who seek to rent out above the cap,” said Goodwin.
“This will help return housing to the long-term rental market which is particularly important in busy tourist areas where our hotels cannot employ people because they have nowhere to stay.”
On the cost of energy, Goodwin said this was an unavoidable and growing concern among accommodation providers.
“We ask whoever forms government after the election to implement improved tax incentives and subsidies as well as continue to work with state and territory governments on support programs to alleviate energy costs and maximise efficiency,” he said.
“Hotels also need continued access to gas. Gas is not only actively used in hot water heating in hotels, it is by far the most used energy source for cooking. Moves by some jurisdictions to limit access to gas have caused a great deal of concern.”
The accommodation industry employs more than 110,000 people as a main job nationwide and tens of thousands more as supplementary employment – with females representing more than 57% of the workforce, and 40% of the jobs outside capital cities.
In the last financial year, the Accommodation and Food Services industry added over AU$60 billion to the Australian economy.