By Leon Gettler >>

THERE IS no doubt 2020 has been a difficult year for Australia’s hotel industry. With air travel and tourism stopping because of COVID-19, revenue has crashed and many hotels face going out of business.

On the other hand, hotels are working closely with the government in areas such as quarantine. Eventually, the economy will re-open and hotels will be back in business again.

Dean Long, the CEO of the Accommodation Association of Australia, the peak industry body representing close to 3500 hotels and nearly 58,000 employees across the country, said it had been a key year of learnings for the industry and government. 

He said the industry had been absolutely devastated with revenues falling 75 percent and 85 percent across the city and regional areas. In a space of four weeks, it had gone from occupancy rates of 90 percent to below 10 percent.

HOTELS IN ‘ISOLATION’ BUSINESS

The industry is now providing the space for self-isolation for incoming travellers and some front-line workers.

“One of the things as an industry we’re proud of is that when we were asked to step up to help healthcare workers stay safe to support their families and also to keep the community safe at the request of government, we were able to provide facilities that enabled that protection to take place,” Mr Long told Talking Business.

He said it had been disappointing to see some of the lapses in government processes in Victoria, but in every other jurisdiction it had worked well.

While other states had used defence force personnel and the police, Victoria had chosen to employ private security guards which appears to have been a source of the outbreak in the state. He said the industry was now looking forward to the findings of the judicial inquiry into the employment of private security guards.

Mr Long said the hotels had provided the governments around Australia with the hotels and had ensured staff were trained in areas like fire protection procedures and evacuation procedures and were there to support the check in processes of the people that were going through the self-isolation.

“What it showed was that in seven of the eight jurisdictions, it worked really well, and I think for the overwhelming majority of cases in Victoria, it also worked very well,” Mr Long said.

He said nobody had gone into the self-isolation process with any bad intentions.

“This isn’t a witch hunt,” Mr Long said. “We need to get to the bottom of what happened so if it does happen again, we know exactly what went wrong so we don’t make the same mistakes again,”

 “And that goes on both sides of the equation. The hotel industry will be far more stringent in what they request of the government in their processes and systems and I think government will be very clear and very certain to not make the same mistakes that have been made to date.”

SAFE GUIDELINES FOR STAFF

Mr Long said the hotels had also implemented safe guidelines for their staff, setting out how to interact in these environments, from the front of the house to those cleaning the rooms and making sure they have the right personal protective equipment (PPE).

All the hotels had increased their cleaning standards and number of times rooms were inspected. He said this would be ongoing.

“What travellers are looking for is a safe, secure tourism experience,” Mr Long said.

He expected hotels would emerge from this period with a greater investment in technology.

“People are going to be much more comfortable with the idea of using their phone to access their room, the ability to self-manage your accounts and interact with a light touch with a number of employees,” Mr Long said. 

“I’m expecting that technology investment to drive some increasing ease of access to hotel facilities and I think consumers are really going to gel with that.”

Mr Long sees a 50-60 percent recovery in the hotel industry towards the end of 2020-21.

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Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.  

QUEENSLAND Treasurer Cameron Dick has formally announced that Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre (BCEC) will re-open in August 2020, with Queensland Health approving the centre's Site Specific COVID Safe Plan.

Mr Dick called the re-opening of BCEC i"a significant milestone for Queensland".

"As we unite and recover from the pandemic, it's cause for celebration that we can welcome staff and visitors back to this outstanding venue," Mr Dick said.
 
BCEC general manager, Bob O’Keeffe said the centre's plan is integrated with VenueShield, a new environmental hygiene protocol developed by BCEC’s parent group, ASM Global and rolled out at ASM Global’s 325 venues worldwide. VenueShield provides the most advanced hygiene safeguards and exceeds current regulations, according to Mr O'Keeffe. 
 
To develop the comprehensive new protocols, ASM Global engaged its in-house executive teams including BCEC and distilled the expertise from across its global network of venues spanning stadia, arenas, theatres, convention and exhibition centres, including the Asia Pacific region. 
 
The centre is planning to host its first events from August 2020, with the health and wellbeing of clients, patrons and staff given top priority.
 
A newly developed BCEC Safe Event Guideline has been prepared and will assist clients in planning their events at the Centre and encompasses all the necessary health and hygiene safeguards, food safety measures and social distancing required under the current opening conditions. The Guideline is designed to ensure the safe hosting of events, providing reassurance and confidence for the Centre’s patrons and staff.
 
With a total of 44 meeting rooms and event spaces, as a venue BCEC is able to provide the additional space that is required to accommodate current social distancing regulations for events of all sizes. The Centre has flexible and adaptable spaces, floor plans and capacities to satisfy all required protocols.
 
Mr O’Keeffe said, "It is yet another sign of green shoots in the recovery of the business events industry. 

“BCEC drives almost 70 percent of Brisbane’s business events room nights and we are looking forward to welcoming events back to the centre and doing what we do best, attracting much sought-after and high yield business events to Brisbane and Queensland.”

www.bcec.com.au

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AUSTRALIANS are being urged to help bring a vital boost to the tourism industry by taking a holiday at home this year, but the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) has warned it could hardly become a simple fix for the country's tourism businesses.

“While the government is doing the right thing in urging Australians to spend their holiday savings at home this year, the idea that it can somehow replace the income the industry derives from international visitors is unrealistic,” ATEC managing director Peter Shelley said.

“Domestic holidays can and will help many Australian tourism businesses, particularly those set up specifically for local visitors, but for those who have strongly invested in the inbound market or who have a business set up purely to service the international visitors, domestic travellers just won’t generate the same income.

“Our research has shown that a third of tourism businesses will not benefit from the domestic tourism market with more than half of businesses expecting to not be viable within six months without international visitors," he said. 

“This is hardly surprising given the average spend of an international visitor is $5,211. It’s just not feasible to think most Australians would spend that amount of money on a domestic holiday in order to make up a $45 billion shortfall."

Mr Shelley said expectations on the travel budget capacity of our domestic market are unrealistic given diminished consumer confidence, perceived economic insecurity and disrupted leave entitlements experienced by many Australians this year. 

“We have already seen some tourism products adjusting their pricing to encourage locals to get involved, but this price reduction is often being massively and unsustainably subsidised and not delivering any real profits to the business.

“Many other tourism businesses are just not able to ‘pivot’ to the domestic market.  They are either exclusively focused on international visitors - like inbound tour operators who build itineraries for international travellers and support and service them during their stay, or tourism businesses which have invested in designing products to appeal to particular international markets.

“Our export tourism industry has been an enormous success and has delivered double digit growth for much of the last decade.  What's important now is that we preserve the export tourism businesses which will form the foundation of our rebuilding so we can reignite that successful growth once international borders are open.

“In truth, there will be very few export tourism businesses who will benefit significantly from a domestic uptick and they definitely won’t be looking at the level of revenue our inbound sector has delivered in the past.

“While we encourage Australians to get out and see Australia, we need to recognise there are some valuable and otherwise viable businesses which will need Government support in order to make it through this long period of hibernation.

“ATEC is currently in discussions with the industry and Government agencies to negotiate an extension of industry support to ensure we protect this important part of our tourism eco structure and help build a plan to successfully drag our tourism industry out of this huge dark hole.”

www.tourismdrivesgrowth.com.au

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