WESTERN Australia’s hotels increased their total earnings by 20 per cent in the past financial year despite low occupancy rates.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows medium and large-sized hotels earned almost $560 million in accommodation revenue in the year to June 2012.
That compares with $470 million in the 2011 financial year and $427 million the year before.
Hoteliers appear to have grown revenue collectively by increasing the number of beds available in existing establishments; bed numbers have increased while the number of hotels remains the same.
The average cost of staying a night in a hotel has risen from $170 in June 2010 to $203 in June this year.
Not surprisingly, that price is much higher than the national cost, which is $159 a night on average.
Despite the reported pressure of finding appropriate accommodation in a state requiring beds for fly-in, fly-out workers, the occupancy rate in hotels remained relatively low.
According to the statistics, rooms in licensed hotels were occupied at a rate of only 40 per cent, potentially reflecting difficult conditions in tourist markets outside Perth.
However, when hotels, motels and serviced apartments were grouped together the occupancy rate increased to about 70 per cent.
