Australian hotels missed an opportunity to make more of foreign interest during the mining investment boom last year, a new report has stated.
Howarth HTL says the high cost of energy and staffing, coupled with poor performance in food and drink departments, brought Australia's profits down, meaning the industry in countries like Singapore and Hong Kong performed better.
The mining boom brought a lot of foreign interest into the country, particularly from the Asia Pacific region. However, now that investment in the sector is dying down, Australia is looking to its property sector to replace it.
Certainly, this has been encouraged in part by the Reserve Bank of Australia, which has been cutting interest rates to make housing more affordable.
Meanwhile, both the residential and commercial property sector has achieved foreign investment, particularly from China. In fact, results from Juwai show the country spent $5.4 billion during the financial year 2012/2013.
Posted by Ravin Chatlani