Weather will make or break Coast holiday bookings

Coast accommodation providers that would usually be packed to the rafters during school holidays have their hopes for a lift in bookings tied with clear skies.

Noosa Main Beach is hoping to see a late surge in resort bookings for the school holidays.

Welcome to Noosa's "suck it and see" school holiday season as nervous resort managers along prime stays like Main Beach, Hastings St and Gympie Tce river foreshore have their hopes for a lift in bookings pinned to clear skies.

Some resorts overlooking Laguna Bay that would usually be packed to the rafters are reportedly only at half capacity for the first week.

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Noosaville's Coral Resort manager Finola Thompson said if this was a normal holiday period not impacted by COVID-19, her units would have been booked out weeks ago.

"We would have had five to seven night bookings, but a lot of resorts are taking less nights," she said.

"This is an environment where people are leaving it very, very late to book.

"A week ago or two weeks ago we would have said it was looking really, really soft, but we've had a lot of last minute bookings."

Send in the crowds to Noosa Main Beach for the school holidays.

She said the first week was holding up OK but it wasn't 100 per cent full, with more gaps in the second week.

She said occupancy depended on having a run of good weather to entice people to head to the Sunshine Coast.

"Tariffs have been lowered but not dramatically, they're a little bit off to what they were," she said.

"I know some people have been more conservative with their tariffs than others.

"It's a kind of suck it and see, people are monitoring it on a daily basis."

Noosa Chamber of Commerce president Rob Neely spoke to his members who look after resort accommodation and was told Hasting St bookings were still very soft for the first week.

"There's a bit of a two speed economy going on in accommodation in Noosa at the moment," Mr Neely said.

"One of my committee people said they'd just left Hastings St now and there was hardly a car nor a person in it, so it's not great.
"Overall outside of school holidays Hastings St is down about 75 per cent year-on-year and the Noosa Foreshore/Gympie Tce, they're down about 45-60 per cent year-on-year."

Mr Neely said based on the feedback he had received from two Zoom calls with chambers of commerce presidents around Queensland and the Sunshine Coast, Noosa's accommodation downturn was consistent with the rest of the Coast, except for the hinterland.

"They are finding places like Maleny in the hinterland are actually doing better than they've ever done," he said.

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