Horwath HTL Sentiment Survey: Australian Hotel Industry and the impact of COVID-19 (Second Version)
The Second Australian Hotel Sentiment Survey reports the ongoing status of the accommodation sector, and seeks to highlight those factors underpinning current operational challenges. We have again gauged what outlook operators hold for performance levels into the immediate future, and probed what operational challenges and likely solutions that owners and operators of accommodations properties face.
Key Findings
Importantly, as the nation is now slowly and tentatively emerging from the lockdowns and isolation measures, this Survey reports on the likely journey ahead for the accommodation sector in Australia. Key findings of the survey include:
- JobKeeper was by far the most adopted Government Stimulus Measure with 91% of all participating properties having utilised the scheme. 89% of accommodation properties in capital cities, 92% of regional properties and 94% of leisure market properties sought the JobKeeper package.
- 80% of survey participants (that are currently operating) describe their operation as being "Cash Flow Negative", making it clear the accommodation sector in Australia is currently in a dire situation.
- Given the current financial situation described above, it is not surprising that 50% of participants state that their current staffing levels are only 0%-25% of pre-COVID levels, with a further 20% at 26%-50% of pre-COVID levels.
- Of the participating properties that classified themselves as being partially operational, on average only 27% of rooms are available for sale. This percentage varies by location type with regional properties having on average 40% of inventory available for sale, capital city properties 26% and leisure properties the lowest at only 18% rooms operational.
- June is expected to be the poorest performing month, with low occupancy levels and at an approximately 30% decline in ADR compared to budget. The result is that RevPAR could decline by up to 87% compared to budget, based on the data taken from survey responses.
- Investment into new hygiene standards is a clear focus of accommodation providers with 74% of properties identifying this as a top-3 initiative.