Fewer motels as city sees drop in visitors staying

Wanganui Fiesta Court Motel owner Dave Hill Photo/File

The closure of a number of Wanganui motels should have improved the lot of the remainder.

But the drop in the number of visitors staying in the River City is still causing concern for the industry.

Dave Hill, chairman of the Destination Whanganui Providers Group representing the visitor accommodation industry, said after an increase in tourist guest nights in January, it was back to a declining trend in February.

According to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's commercial accommodation monitor, guest nights were down 12 per cent on February last year.

Mr Hill said the February 2013 figures had been influenced by the fact Wanganui hosted the biennial NZ Masters Games which traditionally gave numbers a lift.

"However, the overall figures are still showing a disturbing decline continuing now for over five years. Out of 32 regional tourist organisation areas only four showed guest night declines and Wanganui was the worst performer," he said.

The biggest decline was in international visitors (down 28 per cent) followed by domestic visitors (down 4.6 per cent).

Mr Hill said the closure of an number of motels had affected the motel occupancy rates. February occupancy rates were up 11 per cent on last year, but this could be due to fewer rooms being available.

He said the room number drop has followed the closure or conversion of motels to long term flat-type accommodation. These included the Alma Road, the Avro and also the Sports Lodge motels.

"For example, if you multiply the 22 rooms at the Alma Rd motel by the number of days in February, that's 616 room nights," Mr Hill said.

"In total there was a capacity of 9800 room nights in February this year compared with the total capacity of 11,368 in February 12 months ago," he said.

It meant that occupancy rates in the city's motels and apartments for February 2014 was almost 62 per cent, or just over 6000 guest nights, against a capacity available of 9800.

In the same month a year ago, when there was 11,368 room nights available, the actual occupancy was 6332 room nights or just shy of 56 per cent.

"While the occupancy rates for February this year may have gone up, the actual number of visitors has gone down because there's less capacity.

"But this is good news for accommodation providers in a contracting market like Wanganui where an over-supply of rooms in recent years has made it very difficult for some operators to survive," he said.

"The average Wanganui motel occupancy rate over the last 12 months has been 39.9 per cent, compared to Taranaki (58.9 per cent) and Manawatu 49.6 per cent.

"Simply put, Wanganui has been performing badly and that has been the trend for over five years."

Mr Hill said the accommodation industry would be hoping the downward trend can be arrested and reversed by next summer.