Report says Kiwi hotels doing well
Hotels
New Zealand has the fastest recovering hotel sector in the world, a global report suggests, but it doesn’t feel like that to the country’s largest locally-owned hotel chain, Scenic Circle.
Colliers International hotel specialist Dean Humphries said a snapshot of hotel bookings leading up to Queen’s Birthday weekend, the World Hotel Index, compiled by hotel tech company SiteMinder, shows that on Sunday, May 31,
New Zealand daily hotel booking volumes reached 57 per cent of bookings compared to the same date last year.
And that was more than double the global average of 28 per cent. The figures also showed New Zealand had the world’s fastest rate of growth in bookings in the week to May 27.
However, the closure of a lot of the country’s hotels, and recent news of hundreds of ongoing job cuts, contradicts that rosy picture. In tourist mecca Queenstown, more than half of the hotels are closed
Humphries, national director of hotels at Colliers International, said the figures showed New Zealand’s tourism sector has entered a phase of domestic-led recovery.
‘‘The latest figures show a surge of bookings in the lead-up to Queen’s Birthday weekend,’’ Humphries said.
‘‘Booking volumes were at 57.8 per cent of 2019 levels as of Friday, compared with 45.3 per cent a week prior and a 31.4 per cent a fortnight earlier.’’
But Scenic Circle Hotel Group managing director Brendan Taylor answered ‘‘no’’ when asked if it felt like New Zealand’s hotels were recovering more quickly than other countries’. The group has closed five hotels.
A handful of hotels had done well over Queen’s Birthday weekend but it was quiet in Auckland, Christchurch and other regions, Taylor said.
Two of its hotels in Queenstown were full on Saturday and Sunday nights of Queen’s Birthday, in Napier its hotel was 80-90 per cent full, and in Blenheim and Dunedin two hotels were about 50 per cent occupied.
The rest of Scenic’s hotels were running at about 3-4 per cent occupancy or were empty, he said.
Queenstown was the likely leader in New Zealand, probably because Air New Zealand had put on extra flights for Queen’s Birthday, and it was starting to see growth in ski market bookings for July and August.
‘‘It’s good to see the New Zealand market out there and travelling,’’ Taylor said. ‘‘We don’t know how long it’s going to last because, unless there is an activity, it’s difficult for people to go to locations if there’s nothing really happening.’’
For example, Nga¯i Tahu had locked down its hot pools and glacier activities at Franz Joseph and it was unclear when they might open again.