Packed hotels resort to pop-up container rooms
Fiona Carruthers and Larry Schlesinger
909 words
31 Oct 2015
The Australian Financial Review
AFNR
English
Boom
The lower Australian dollar is boosting tourism.
Two 20-foot shipping containers masquerading as a luxury hotel suite, including a rooftop jacuzzi and terrace, will soon be floating on Sydney harbour for two nights.
If the visuals of the mining boom were all about trucks and railway trains carting the black gold, the hotel boom is cranes, scaffolding, lavish openings - and the odd quirky pop-up suite as hoteliers get crafty about wowing their clientele.
"There's a real trend towards the thrilling and off-beat," says Stefan Cordiner, from hotel booking app HotelTonight, which has partnered with Ovolo Hotels to create the "Spontaneity Suite", a pop-up hotel room made from two shipping containers dropped into scenic locations across Australia and raising money for charity OzHarvest.
Pop-ups like the spontaneity suite - and St Jerome's in Melbourne (20 luxury safari-style tents on level three of Melbourne Central mall available through until May 2016) - are appearing as Australia enjoys its best hotel market conditions in decades, with inner city occupancy rates surging above 80 per cent and thousands of new hotel rooms in the pipeline in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide according the latest Savills Hotels Market Report.
Hotel returns are rising on the back of the tourism boom as record numbers of overseas visitors, many from Asia, take advantage of the lower Australian dollar to visit for holidays, work or to see family.
Sydney's occupancy rate hit 86 per cent in September, according to hotel market researchers STR Global, a record for that month, while the average room rate of $195 a night was second only to the September of the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
"Australia's burgeoning tourism industry has never been more important for our economy, especially for cities like Brisbane and Perth, which have experienced softening in occupancy due to the slowdown in the mining sector," said Simon McGrath, chief operating Officer at Accor Hotels Pacific, the biggest hotel operator in Australia with brands like the Pullman and Sofitel in its vast portfolio.
"Sydney and Melbourne are still the top performing markets for AccorHotels and the luxury hotel sector is seeing some of its strongest growth since 2008."
With China arrivals set to double from 100 million to 200 million by 2020, McGrath said it was "imperative we keep on top of our luxury product and continue to innovate".
Over the next two years, Accor has more than 3,000 rooms coming online in Australia, of which half are new build luxury developments like Sofitel Darling Harbour, Sofitel Adelaide and MGallery Elements of Byron Resort.
In Sydney, Singapore hotel tycoon Michael Kum is catering for the rising demand for accommodation by adding 222 rooms as part of a new 25-level tower atop the Four Points by Sheraton Sydney hotel overlooking Darling Harbour. Another hotel magnate, Jerry Schwartz is building two floors above the Rydges Sydney Central hotel, where occupancy rates have soared above 90 per cent.
Schwartz will also take ownership of the new $340 million, Accor-managed Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour Hotel, when it's completed in 2017.
Melbourne is the other standout performer, particularly in the five-star luxury hotel segment, with occupancy at all almost 90 per cent, according to STR Global and average room rates up eight per cent over the year to date to $302 a night. Casino billionaire James Packer has been heavily promoting a new 90 storey high-rise tower at Crown Melbourne incorporating 388 hotel rooms - while still seeking approval for his proposed $2 billion Crown casino and hotel complex at Sydney's Barangaroo.
Earlier this month, a Singaporean developer won approval to build a 56-level hotel above Little Lonsdale Street in Melbourne; elsewhere in the city, construction is under way on a new Ritz-Carlton, a Four Points by Sheraton Hotel and Amalgamated Holding's QT Melbourne.
Even in Perth, where the tapering off of the mining boom has reduced demand for hotel rooms during the week, the overall occupancy rate remains above 80 per cent with average room rates still high at $198 a night.
New hotels confirmed for Perth include two DoubleTree hotels by Hilton Worldwide and a new Ritz-Carlton as part of the Elizabeth Quay project.
In Brisbane, occupancy rates at five-star hotels remain above 80 per cent despite a flood of new hotel openings before last year's G20 Summit. The city's signature hotel project is the 1100 room Ritz-Carlton planned for Echo Entertainment's $2 billion Queen's Wharf Casino project with construction to begin in 2017.
"There's a sense of optimism in Queensland, with the tourism industry telling us it's the best it's been before the GFC," Tourism and Events Queensland CEO, Leanne Coddington told AFR Weekend.
The hotel boom has also spread into Adelaide, a city starved until recently of new hotels, with half a dozen new projects under way, including a new Aloft hotel to be operated by US giant Starwood alongside new hotels by Choice, Accor and Intercontinental Hotels.
If you prefer something more quirky, head for The Frames, a recently opened resort in SA's Riverland wine growing region, featuring three architecturally designed retreats with huge spa rooms and designer pools.
Adding a touch of luxury to The Murray river, they also offer private cruises to a boutique brewery.
Fairfax Media Management Pty Limited
Hotels seek
flexible rules
Ewin H; mi urn
Workplace editor
The hospitality industry is mounting a
push to make it easier to hire part-time
workers by offering guaranteed minimum
hours and entitlements only
available to permanent staff.
In return, employers would get more
leverage to change when their staff
work, which would give hotels and restaurants
the ability to call in part-time
staff at short notice.
The Australian Hotels Association,
which also wants Sunday and public
holiday penalty rates reduced, said its
plan would guarantee part-timers
work, access to paid leave entitlements
and superannuation, and make it
easier to secure bank loans.
Samantha Walder, the director of
human resources at the Intercontinental
Double Bay in Sydney, said the
hotel did not employ any part-time
employees among its 112 staff because
the arrangements governing their
employment were inflexible and
impractical.
'The requirement for an employer
and employee to agree upon a fixed
roster at the commencement of
employment impedes the hotel's ability
to change the days and times for an
employee's agreed hours of work in
accordance with fluctuations in the
business over different roster periods,"
she told the Fair Work Commission in a
witness statement
"Fluctuations in trading patterns
include accommodation occupancy,
dining reservations and functions and
events. By comparison, full-time and
casual employees are not restricted in
the same way with respect to being
required to set their days and starting
and finishing times at the outset of the
employment relationship."
Ms Walder, who previously worked
for the Four Seasons hotels in Sydney
and Los Angeles, said there were only
five part-time workers among the 600
award employees engaged by the Four
Seasons in Sydney.
"During my employment with the
Four Seasons Hotel Sydney, we generally
avoided employing part-time
employees covered by the award due to
the inflexibility of the part-time provision
in the award," she said.
Ms Walder said the Intercontinental
would employ part-time employees if
the commission supported the AHA
proposal.
"The hotel is particularly interested
in utilising the four week averaging
option for part-time employees and if
that provision was incorporated into
the award, we will transition some
existing casual positions to part-time
employment through natural attrition,"
she said.
Darren Brown, general manager of
the Shoreline Hotel in Tasmania said
he would covert 10 to 12 casual employees
to part-time status if the commission
backed the AHA proposal. The
large suburban pub near the Bellerive
Oval employs 28 full-time staff and 31
casuals.
Mr Brown said he needed to roster
on more workers when the North Melbourne
AFL club played at Bellerive
Oval, or one day cricket internationals
were played at the ground.
"At the time of making this statement
I am in the process of finalising
preparations for a sold out Melbourne
Cup lunch where I will need as many
employees as are available to work in
order to support trade, when many of
those employees would not ordinarily
work on a Tuesday," he said.
The Hotels Association has told the
Fair Work Commission that employee
requests to convert from casual to parttime
status were often being refused
due to the inflexible nature of current
part-time employment provisions.
The existing part-time provisions in
the hospitality award require an
employer and part-time employee to
agree on the employee's total weekly
hours of work, the specific days to be
worked, and the actual starting and finishing
times the hours will be worked.
Any time worked outside of this
arrangement is paid as overtime; and
the only way to change the arrangement
is through a written agreement
between the employer and employee.
Under the AHA proposal, backed by
the Tourism Accommodation Australia,
an employer and part-time
employee would agree on total weekly
hours, or average weekly hours over a
four week period, and the days upon
which those hours could be rostered.
An employer would be able to
change a part-time employees' roster to
accommodate week-to-week changes
in trading patterns, while guaranteeing
an employee a set number of hours
each week
The hours could be rostered across
the agreed range of days up to five days
a week.
Key points
Hotels say that current rules
make it too difficult to hire
part-time staff.
Workers would be offered
guaranteed minimum hours.