Queensland hotels up prices as Aussies take advantage of two long weekends in a row

WITH many of us taking advantage of two long weekends in a row, top hotels are taking advantage of us.

SOME of the Gold Coast’s biggest hotels offered rooms at more than $800 a night as their best deal over the Easter long weekend after tourists swamped southeast Queensland.

The Hilton and Soul in Surfers Paradise offered rooms at $819 and $825 on Sunday while the Marriott had their best rate at $699 after holiday makes snapped up regular rooms.

Popular booking agency Wotif.com, who joined the State Government as an official partner of their last-minute Easter campaign, had prices four times the regular rate at some venues in Queensland as standard rooms booked out.

Hotels in Mooloolaba and Noosa briefly had their cheapest prices at over $1000 before even those high-end rooms sold out.

The crazy prices were largely due to only suites being available.

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Large numbers of hotels across the state had ‘no vacancy’ signs up across the entire weekend, in an encouraging sign for the industry who feared perceptions that Cyclone Ita had shut down the state may impact on numbers.

Queensland Tourism Industry council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said the back-to-back long weekends had encouraged people to travel.

“A lot of people have taken an extended holiday this year with a short week between the two long weekends it is encouragement to do so,” he said.

“It is good timing for the industry and for both visitors and consumers.”

Mr Gschwind said it had been positive that tourist operators didn’t have to slash prices to clear the bulk of rooms.

“Queensland is very good value, you never want to see price slashing, but you want to be competitive and Queensland is very competitive.”

Tourism Minister Jann Stuckey launched a nationwide campaign on Tuesday in a last ditch bid to attract tourists to the state.

North Queensland, on the back of Ita, was not as busy as the southeast of the state but still recorded solid visitation numbers.