Accor Deputy Delivers Verdict on Brisbane Games Hotel Shortfall

Jean-Jacques Morin was yet to utter a word but his raised eyebrows were saying it all. It was a telling reaction from the Paris-based deputy chief executive of global hotel giant Accor ( pictured above ) to the impending Olympics hospitality challenge facing south-east Queensland. Quite clearly from Morin’s reflex response, no complex calculations were needed to identify the outlier in the numbers The Urban Developer was putting in front of him. With seven years remaining before the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, the region has only 46,000 hotel rooms. By comparison, Los Angeles—where the next Games will be staged in 2028—has 120,000 and last year’s host city Paris has more than 130,000. According to the data from the Queensland Tourism Industry Council, even with its current pipeline of committed new developments, south-east Queensland’s hotel room inventory is expected to grow to just 51,000 by 2030. “Nowhere near what is needed,” it has warned. And Morin agrees. “There is capacity in Paris. There is no capacity here,” he exclusively tells The Urban Developer after jetting into the Gold Coast from Accor HQ in France. ▲ A severe undersupply of rooms is not the only issue facing the accommodation sector Brisbane in the lead-up to the Olympics. By all calculations, the state’s hospitality sector is facing a shortfall of at least 30,000 keys ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Games. “That’s a lot of development,” Morin says, before adding “Yes, there’s still time but I hope you’ve put money aside.” He knows more than most what it will take. Accor was the first hotel operator in the history of the Games to be tapped to oversee and manage athlete and media accommodation—a total of more than 3000 apartments and 16,000 beds spread across more than 90 buildings for the 2024 Paris Olympics. It included a combination of new construction as well as renovated and adaptively reused infrastructure that after the event was to be converted into almost 4000 homes, student accommodation and a hotel, as well as park, retail and office space. Last month, Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Natassia Wheeler called for urgent action to address the state’s critical shortfall in hospitality infrastructure, saying “the numbers speak for themselves”. “We cannot ignore the reality—our infrastructure is not keeping pace. We need strategic, accelerated investment … the clock is ticking.” ▲ Accor’s Duncan O’Rourke, Jean-Jacques Morin and Adrian Williams at the Mondrian Gold Coast. Property Council Queensland executive director Jess Caire says with surging occupancy levels the case for incentivising new investment in hotel development was clear “so we don’t miss this golden opportunity”. “Without it we risk missing the moment to leverage our reputation as a global tourism destination,” she says. “With a 40 per cent increase in international tourist arrivals expected during the 2032 Games, we need bold policy changes if we are to build the hotels needed to accommodate these visitors.” PCA research shows that from 2019 to 2024 the number of new additions to Brisbane’s hotel supply had fallen by about 90 per cent with only 820 hotel rooms delivered compared to 7500 during the preceding five years. Caire says the pandemic had no doubt contributed to the drop in new hotel rooms but ongoing construction challenges were the key factor, with the cost of building a hotel room increasing by almost 40 per cent over the same period. “Add to that an outdated tax regime that actively discourages the kind of investment hotels rely on, coupled with planning hurdles and rising operating costs, and it is no surprise that the hotel pipeline has all but dried up, with only 618 new hotel rooms currently under construction in Brisbane.” On the Gold Coast to attend Accor’s Pacific Leaders conference at Australia’s first Mondrian-branded hotel and residences, Morin says hotel construction is “definitely an issue”. But not just in Australia, in most markets—including the US, Europe and “to a lesser extent” Asia. ▲ The $400-million Mondrian Gold Coast at Burleigh Heads. “It was basically blocked during Covid,” he says. “Then it improved but never went back to the level before Covid. We are still far away and that’s true for everywhere.” Accor chief operating officer for the Pacific region Adrian Williams says the newly opened $400-million Mondrian Gold Coast is a product of overcoming the prevailing construction challenges. Developed by the Vitale Property Group, the 24-storey dual tower complex at Burleigh Heads features 208 hotel rooms and 84 residential apartments. “As Jean-Jacques says, constructing a hotel does have some challenges at the moment,” Williams says. “But what this property has is the de-risking by building a residential tower with the hotel tower. “This is our first branded residence in Australia and we do see that there’s great opportunity and you’re going to see more and more of that.” Accor manages 6000 hotels worldwide, including 360 properties in Australia and another 40 in the pipeline. Events, particularly sporting events, are also integral to Accor’s business, the company’s Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa chief executive Duncan O’Rourke says. “That’s very much part of our ecosystem…and we love Australia,” he says. “For example, the sponsorship of [Sydney’s] Accor Stadium and big events...that’s exactly what Accor is about and we are very excited to continue to grow here.” Williams adds that Accor has always had a big focus on south-east Queensland. “We’ve got a big presence here and that will continue, particularly going into the Olympics as more people look to invest,” he says. ▲ Section of the athletes village at the Paris Olympics; Accor oversaw and managed athlete and media accommodation for the event. “It’s only natural as the leading hospitality player that we would expect to have a big part to play in that.” But Morin also points out that filling the region’s hospitality void in the lead-up to the 2032 Games is only the first challenge. “If you build the properties, you also need to make sure you get the people, you need to get the structure to manage and operate them,” he says. He cites the 2022 World Cup in Doha during which Accor was contracted—with the aim of avoiding accommodation shortages—to manage 65,000 rooms operated by hundreds of workers “imported” from its extensive and ever-growing portfolio of properties around the world. “It's another way by which we dealt with the complexity,” he says. For the Paris Olympics, Accor deployed about 800 people to operate the athletes and media villages with recruitment, planning and training taking two years to ensure everything went smoothly. Simultaneously, as part of the company’s Games preparations, it also mobilised 40,000 employees across its more than 1700 hotels throughout France. “So that’s also quite a job,” Morin says. Even, it seems, in a destination renowned for its hospitality savoir faire and accustomed to accommodating an average 50 million tourists a year.

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