Category: Insights

Expedia, Agoda say ‘sacred cows’ of rate parity and last room availability killed by COVID

The adversarial relationship between hoteliers and the OTAs has changed to an “all hands on deck mentality” during COVID with operators no longer insisting on rate parity and last room availability – once major sticking points – as they scramble to put heads on beds, according to Expedia and Agoda. Speaking at the Web in Travel […]

BridgeClimb brand to continue under new owners

The BridgeClimb brand will live on under new owners Hammons Holdings who won recently won commercial climbing and tourism rights for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. BridgeClimb is the incumbent company and its contract expires at the end of September. In mid-August Hammons Holding bought BridgeClimb’s assets and today confirmed the iconic brand would continue, appointing Scenic […]

Anthea Hammon, Managing Director, Scenic World; Director Hammons Holdings

Anthea Hammon, who is speaking at Travel IQ 2018, is the Managing Director of Scenic World, a third-generation family business which has been operating in the Blue Mountains for over 70 years. As Australia’s most visited privately owned tourist attraction that welcomes over one million visitors annually, Anthea has led the company through a strong period of growth and […]

All hail Captain Cook: New disruptive ferry service for Sydney

Captain Cook Cruises has launched AHOY, Australia’s first ‘ferry hailing’  app.  The first on-demand route started yesterday and covers Elizabeth Bay to Garden Island and Circular Quay in Sydney for a cost of $7.50, much cheaper than a cab, Uber or water taxi.  “Like popular ride sharing services, AHOY allows customers to locate their ferry, […]

Accor CEO Sebastien Bazin says business travel down 10% long term

Accor CEO Sebastien Bazin believes business travel will “never return to the new normal” and that in the long term corporate numbers likely sit around 10% less than they were pre-COVID. Short term, until mid-2021, he estimates business travel will be down 25% to 30%. “Longer term, my expectation is going to be it will […]

‘Thredbo’ is not owned by anyone, says Federal Court Judge

The decision by management at the Thredbo mountain resort to own the name ‘Thredbo’ sparked a series of events that backfired spectacularly yesterday when the Federal Court determined they could do no such thing, ruling in favour of businessman Glenn Smith, who operates numerous local accommodation businesses and websites including Thredbo.com. Thredbo, which has been […]

Winners and losers in Tourism Australia restructure

Tourism Australia has announced a major restructure which Managing Director Andrew McEvoy says is aimed at boosting consumer marketing, improving online strategy and execution while giving TA a role in finding new investment for Australian tourism infrastructure. The restructure sees the departure of key executive Richard Beere and strengthens the role of marketing under Nick […]

Viator smashes it: big profit after years of losses

No pain no gain. That could be the mantra at tours and activities business Viator, which has staged an incredible turnaround over the past 12 months due primarily to the hard-headed vision of Dermot Halpin, who has shaken the company up and made it profitable – literally tens of million of dollars in the black – […]

Vail Now Resorts dominates Australian skiing with latest buy

Vail Resorts now owns three out of the five major Australian ski fields following its acquisition of Mount Hotham and Falls Creek for $174 million from Merlin Entertainments last week. Both resorts are located in Victoria about a five hour drive from Melbourne. Vail has owned Perisher, Australia’s largest and most popular resort, since 2015. […]

Sydney Airport to raise $2bn as business struggles with COVID

Sydney Airport is raising $2 billion to pay down debt and increase liquidity during the toughest period in its history. The company revealed that passenger numbers during the second quarter were down 96.6% over the previous corresponding period, contributing to a $53.5 million loss for the half year to June 30. Total passenger numbers for […]

Rachel Wiseman, Chief Investment Officer, NRMA Group

Rachel Wiseman was appointed Chief Investment Officer in November 2016. Rachel is responsible for the NRMA Group’s commercial interests, including corporate development, investments, partnerships and growth, public policy and research, community investment as well as the corporate legal and company secretariat functions. Before joining the NRMA, Rachel held the role of General Manager Corporate Development […]

New short term rental laws in NSW include guest and host bans

The NSW Government says unruly guests and bad hosts will be banned from the short term rental (STR) industry for five years under a new mandatory Code of Conduct it announced yesterday. It’s part of a legislative initiative which also requires that all STR properties are registered with Fair Trading NSW by June 1, 2021. […]

Highly profitable Stayz.com.au finally reveals financials

Stayz.com.au has revealed its financials for the first time. Australia’s most popular holiday house site made a profit of A$13 million before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation on revenue of  A$23.1 million in the 2012 financial year. This makes it Australia’s #2 accommodation booking site behind Wotif.com and gives Stayz a whopping gross margin of 56.3%, […]

Global marketing refresh for HotelsCombined

Meet Max, the somewhat cynical, not so cuddly bear that meta-search company HotelsCombined has chosen to unify its site branding and also help consumers through the booking process. Max now appears on all HotelsCombined owned properties, including several newish market-specific sites – DetectaHotel.com (Latin America), Biyi.cn (China) and RoomGuru.com (Russia). It’s another step in the evolution of HotelsCombined, which is now […]

Coronavirus hits Australian hotel performance

Australian hotels have been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and related bans on Chinese travellers. STR data shows Melbourne and Brisbane were the only two major Australian markets to report  year on year RevPAR growth between 24 Jan and 9 Feb, 2020, a two week stretch encompassing Chinese New Year. All other markets were […]