The New Zealand Hotel Industry Conference 2018 began on 4 July in the Crystal Room at Cordis, Auckland.
The conference is the largest annual event dedicated to the country’s booming hotel sector. Based on the confidence presented in the speaker's forums and the eager attention the attendees paid at the full capacity venue, it would be safe to assume the industry is in an exciting place right now.
The conference began with the Hotel Forum which included presentations on revenue management, an update on employment law, immigration rules, and disaster resilience.
After a short break for lunch the Technology Forum, presented by Ted Homer kicked off. An exciting takeaway from this forum was a presentation from Australian internet company GX2, who design, install and support Wi-Fi network solutions for hotels and other sectors. They are owned by Superloop, a dark fibre provider who believe they can extend their Superloop network to New Zealand in the coming years, an exciting prospect that could have ramifications on the hotel internet industry in New Zealand.
The afternoon session was filled with the renamed, Property Forum. Hosted by veteran industry experts Stephen Hamilton of Horwath HTL and Dean Humphries of Colliers International, the forum dived into the state of the market, looking deep at the industry’s growth throughout the regions and showed off never seen before data. One key takeaway from their presentations was that more visitors than ever are coming to New Zealand, and New Zealand is not keeping up with the demand. The country needs more hotels. Queenstown, in particular, is falling behind the rate of growth, and investors should take note.
They then hosted a panel of major industry players from New Zealand and Australia, including Abhijay Sandilya from IHG, Michael Herman of TFE Hotels, Lindsay Leeser of AccorHotels, Udai Sarin of Sarin Investments and Brett Russell of the Russell Group of Companies. Humphries quizzed the panellists on why there are fewer hotel projects underway in New Zealand than our Australian neighbours, what is holding New Zealand’s hotel industry back, and the best opportunities for growth in the country.
Finally, the day closed with Rob Neil of Safari Group presenting the success story of his business. And if it wasn’t clear before his presentation, Neil showed how Safari has become one of the dominant hotel builders in the country, with countless hotel projects – mostly Ramadan – either recently completed or in development.
For anybody interested in the financial state, and future evolvements of the hotel industry in New Zealand, day one of the conference was invaluable.
