Sentiment survey: Australian hotel industry and the impact of COVID-19

Hotel owners and operators in Australia are currently looking at an empty horizon, uncertain when the first signs of a resumption of business and leisure travel will come into view, according to a sentiment survey conducted by Horwath HTL Singapore, in partnership with AHS Advisory.

The findings include:

The majority of hotels in the survey (67 percent) are planning to remain open. This is a higher ratio than had initially been expected heading into the survey. A greater proportion of hotels located in regional markets (69 percent) are planning to stay open compared to their state capital counterparts (65 percent), despite the fact that a greater proportion of participating regional hotels have already closed. The majority of survey participants expect the impact of COVID-19 to be long-term, thus, occupancy performance is expected to start rebounding only in the fourth quarter 2020. There is no noticeable difference in the trend of occupancy expectation