It’s been a big couple of weeks for major events in South Australia, with the inaugural Harvest Rock this weekend kicking off a blockbuster festival season full of new and returning events.
The new two-day festival offers an impressive line up of international and Australian artists, as well as a showcase of South Australian food and beverage curated by Jake Kellie of arkhé and acclaimed Australian wine critic Nick Stock.
Following Harvest Rock and extending the ‘summer of sport’ and Mad March festival periods, upcoming major events include the VALO Adelaide 500, Australia v West Indies day-night Test Match, back-to-back Adelaide Internationals, the Santos Tour Down Under, and recently announced gets including the AFL ‘festival of footy’ and LIV Golf tournament.
Major events are an important driver of visitation and it’s pleasing to see this reflected in hotel occupancy data.
The most recent forward booking data from STR shows occupancy for CBD hotels on the Saturday of Harvest Rock was already at 86 per cent, with actual occupancy set to be even higher.
This week, we also celebrated some wins for aviation. Thanks to increases in schedules from international airlines like Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines, international aviation capacity is set to reach above 90 per cent of pre pandemic levels by January.
A special congratulations too, to the team at Adelaide Airport who were awarded the Capital City Airport of the Year at the Australian Airports Association gala dinner this week. It is a wonderful recognition of the team’s hard work during the pandemic as well as the world-class terminal expansion.
I acknowledge it is also a time of significant stress for many of our tourism operators within the Riverland and Murray River Lakes and Coorong regions. The SATC has been represented at all of the community meetings held so far across the regions, and has been in close contact with our Regional Tourism Managers. It has been a timely opportunity to hear directly from businesses impacted, which has helped us to inform the assistance package that is currently being developed.
The Premier is due to visit the Riverland on Tuesday and is expected to confirm the funding arrangements. Our Minister will also be in the region next week to meet with operators – I will share more details once these are confirmed.
Thank you,
Stephanie Rozokos
Chief Executive
Read Industry Update – 18 November 2022
