Brissie leads post-Covid tourism bounce back

Hotel giant Accor says Queensland, and Brisbane in particular, is leading the Australian travel recovery even amid financial difficulties experienced by airlines.

Brisbane is leading tourism charge.

Brisbane is leading the tourism bounce back after the Covid-19 shutdown.

Accor Pacific chief operating officer Adrian Williams tells City Beat that Queensland, and Brisbane in particular, is leading the Australian travel recovery even amid financial difficulties experienced by carriers such as Rex and Bonza. Williams says he is encouraged by increases in international airline capacity into Brisbane, Cairns and the Gold Coast, which bodes well for Accor’s hotels this financial year.

“International inbound has finally begun to recover most of the lost ground over the past four years, with substantial increases in direct international flights into Queensland airports confirmed,” Williams told a media lunch at the swish Sixteen Antlers restaurant at Pullman Brisbane King George Square. “We are confident of accelerated growth in inbound business for our hotels in the year ahead.”

Accor, which has a network of 95 hotels, resorts and apartments encompassing 12,095 rooms across Queensland, recorded an increase of 1.5 occupancy percentage points to 70.7 per cent for the year to July, compared to the corresponding year.

Adrian Williams says tourism in Queensland is on the rebound.

A hotel’s occupancy rate is the percentage of rooms in the property that are occupied at a given time.

Brisbane City was the leader in the resurgence, with growth up 4.6 occupancy points, driven by increased leisure and corporate demand.

Overall leisure markets are slightly ahead of last year with the Cairns Area showing the strongest year to date growth up 7 occupancy points through increased leisure demand and group business. Tourism Research Australia reports that 27 million visitors arrived in the year to March 2024, surpassing pre-pandemic records as both domestic and international visitor numbers surged. The year also saw a new high in Queensland’s overnight visitor expenditure with a total of $6.1 billion, an increase of 100.9 per cent compared to 2019. Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast reached new international expenditure records.

Uranium deal

Veteran Queensland mining executives Cameron McCall and Joe Phillips have sealed a $12.6m deal to offload their Brisbane-based uranium vehicle Jag Minerals to US-based Tonogold Resources. Tonogold announced this week it had entered a definitive agreement to buy all the shares in Jag, a private company where Phillips is a director and McCall a major shareholder with about 28 per cent of the shares. Tonogold’s board includes another Aussie Ryan Welker, who also serves on the MacArthur board, and investment banker William Hunter. The US is the largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30 per cent of worldwide nuclear generation of electricity. Yet it only has one per cent of the world’s uranium resources. There are 52 new nuclear reactors under construction around the world. Hunter, who is chief executive of Tonogold, says the acquisition will allow the company to accelerate development and exploration of its uranium and vanadium mine in Montrose County, Colorado and San Juan County, Utah.

Tech kudos

Local tech entrepreneur Sarah-Jane Peterschlingmann, the managing director of ATech, has been named as a finalist in the 27th annual Women in Technology (WiT) Awards.

The awards celebrate women across the tech and science fields whose creativity, advocacy and leadership are driving positive change for Queenslanders and inspiring more females to enter these sectors. Starting out as a web developer in 2007, Peterschlingmann has grown Brisbane-based ATech to become a leading cloud hosting and web development company with multimillion dollar revenues.

The winners will be announced at the WiT Awards Gala Dinner at the Brisbane Royal International Convention Centre on September 27.

Sarah-Jane Peterschlingmann