Easter is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, with the Sunshine Coast in a sweet position to fill its accommodation basket with domestic and international holidaymakers.
The four-day Easter break starts on Good Friday, April 15, with the accompanying school holidays from April 2-18.
That’s just in time to reap the benefits of increasing tourist confidence, with Queensland about to reach its 90% vaccination target for people aged 16 and over.
The region is also poised to welcome overseas visitors in numbers within three months.
Since 1am on January 22, fully vaccinated international travellers have no restrictions on entering Queensland and no longer need to quarantine. But they will need to take a rapid antigen test (RAT) within 24 hours of arriving.
Holiday homes have been the real winner in post-lockdown travel for domestic visitors, with Easter bookings already catching hosts on the hop.
But these new business-recovery milestones may also be enough to curb the “wait-and-see” attitude that has plagued other short-term accommodation bookings in recent months.
Visit Sunshine Coast CEO Matt Stoeckel said news of the state almost reaching the 90% vaccination target “provides us with confidence and takes us a step closer to seeing international visitors return to the Sunshine Coast”.
“We anticipate New Zealand to be one of the first markets to flock back to the region, and (we are) looking forward to seeing the direct air services return from April this year,” he said.
“Prior to the pandemic, New Zealand was our No.1 international market with 84,000 annual visitors and an economic value of $110 million.
“We still have a long way to go recover our tourism numbers to where they were before the pandemic.
“But with borders reopen, there are smoother waters ahead and looking towards 2022 with a lot of optimism for the industry.”
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The return of international tourists is the icing on the summer-holidays cake for the Sunshine Coast.
Thousands of Queensland and interstate travellers made the region their No.1 choice over the Christmas-New Year break.
Mr Stockel told Sunshine Coast News at the time that many of those visitors were returning fans, as well as travellers looking to reunite with family and friends.
The Coast welcomed up to 30 flights a day, Noosa bookings were above 2019 and 2020 levels for that time of year, and any cancellations were being snapped up within minutes in Caloundra.
Now the region has officially been named the most-loved destination in the world by the Tourism Sentiment Index, which tracked the sentiment of travellers online across 1.8 billion conversation and content pieces in 2021.
Stayz travel expert Simone Scoppa said the whole of 2021 was a bumper year for hosts with bookings on the Sunshine Coast a complete sell-out in most locations over the Christmas-New Year break.
“It’s the perfect combination of large spaces to bring your family and friends together without being around other travellers and sharing amenities with strangers,” she said of the boom in holiday-home bookings.
“We saw for busy holiday seasons like Christmas that travellers were booking out the most popular destinations on the Sunshine Coast way back in July, more than six months out from their travel dates.
“This was three months earlier than usual, so travellers were planning ahead to get the hottest property for 2021: a holiday home booking for Christmas by the beach.”
Among the stars was Point Arkwright’s Barra Luxe Beach House, which started life as a 1970s beach shack and took the 2021 gold in the Stayz annual list of Australia’s top 10 holiday homes.
Ms Scoppa said Stayz’ advice to travellers looking for a holiday home in 2022 was simply to book early.
“The earlier you book, the greater choice you have at nabbing that coveted multi-bedroom luxury beachside escape before half of the Australian population does before you,” she said.
Ms Scoppa said Easter already was booking quickly.
“We are already seeing only 12% of holiday homes left to book across the whole Sunshine Coast region,” she said.
“Coolum has 8% of homes left to book, Noosa 17% and Mooloolaba 23%. This is promising news for the tourism industry, having booked heads in beds so far ahead of time and demand for a Sunshine Coast holiday is still at high levels.”
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Newport Apartments Mooloolaba manager Ben Sullivan is one man who certainly hopes the predictions of a happy Easter, bookings-wise, eventuate.
Despite his high-rise building enjoying a premium beachside location, he is seeing few forward bookings for the four-day Easter break: only 25% occupancy at this stage.
But he remains optimistic of a full house, as most travellers remain “gun-shy” of booking more than a week out from their preferred dates.
“At this stage, we’re not seeing many forward bookings. They’re looking at the weather and making sure there’s been no (COVID) rule changes,” he said.
“Then the phone will start ringing on Thursday for a weekend booking or week booking from Monday.”
Mr Sullivan said the region’s winter tourist market had been decimated over the past two years.
“That’s because our winter market comes from Victoria, southern NSW and New Zealand,” he said.
“We expect to have all those people back this year (due to easing of border restrictions).
“Winter is one of our busiest periods on the Sunshine Coast.
“Now this Omicron is supposed to have peaked, and winter being a fair way away, we’re all going to be pretty well under control and that older generation of retirees will have the confidence to come to the Sunshine Coast.”
Newport had “a good Christmas”, all things considered, with festive-season bookings the best in two years, but Mr Sullivan added: “We had just as many cancellations as we did bookings due to the slow turnaround with PCR tests, unavailability of the rapid antigen tests and the rules around interstate travel”.
“We actually had people ringing us from the airport in tears, saying, ‘It’s been 72 hours. I’m at the airport and I still haven’t got my results’ and they’ve had to cancel,” he said.
“Our policy is that if you’re stuck in that situation, I’m not going to penalise you. Refunds are fully given. Some people chose to keep their deposit in place for future bookings.
“Last year from January to December, we had over half-a-million dollars worth of cancellations.
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“That’s in my building alone and I manage 48 rooms. Multiply that by how many high-rises you see on the Sunshine Coast.
“That just reflects the amount of administration, and back and forth. Accommodation providers have had to change our whole office structure to deal with the current climate.”
Newport had not yet seen the two-week school holidays extension translate into bookings, but Mr Sullivan expected February to bounce back – a month when country people traditionally booked holidays once harvests had been completed and children were at boarding school.
