Olympic Crisis Looms asCritical Accommodation Shortage Hits Rockhampton and Yeppoon – “Desperate” Plea Issued for Short-Term Rooms
- Regional Queensland faces critical accommodation shortage, with vacancy rates as low as 0.7%
- Over 1,200 short-term rooms needed in Capricornia region before 2032 Olympic Games
- Tourism operators and council plead for action, citing “desperate” need for new rooms
Rockhampton and Yeppoon are staring down the barrel of an accommodation crisis, with the 2032 Olympic Games fast approaching and a crippling shortage of short-term rooms. The Capricornia region is in dire need of over 1,200 new rooms, but the clock is ticking, and tourism operators are sounding the alarm.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a staggering 192,393 properties were vacant on Census night in 2021, equating to 8.7% of the state’s total dwellings. But in Rockhampton, the once-thriving seven-storey Plaza Hotel has been closed on and off for the past decade, leaving 66 rooms to gather dust.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t send a good message at all. Everyone is dealing with homelessness, people sleeping in the parks and on the streets,” Rockhampton Regional Council’s Grant Mathers lamented. “In a heartbreaking development, the hotel’s abandoned rooms are going to waste while people are homeless.”
The REIQ’s 2025 Residential Vacancy Rate Report reveals a haunting reality: 34 regions out of 50 in Queensland have a rental vacancy rate at or below 1%. “Most parts of regional Queensland are sitting at well below what we consider to be a healthy range,” REIQ chief executive officer Antonia Mercorella warned. “We are seeing tight vacancy rates across most parts of the country at the moment.”
Rockhampton’s Plaza Hotel has become a symbol of the city’s accommodation crisis, with the council forced to take drastic measures to clean up the neglected site. “I get it. I don’t think local council should have the ability to be able to walk into private residences and demand for this to be done and that to be done, but there are times when we need to act and we need to take the legal opportunities that are available to us,” councillor Mathers said.
Tourism operators are equally frustrated, citing the lack of short-term accommodation as a major concern. “When it comes to freehold land, it can be really frustrating for organisations like mine, for the general community, for local and state government in regards to them sitting there bare when we have a desperate need for accommodation,” Capricorn Enterprise chief executive officer Mary Carroll said. “We are desperate for these new short-term rooms because I’m losing short-term accommodation in unit complexes to long-term bookings, either people living in them and taking them out of the rental pool, or major jobs like the Rockhampton Ring Road taking up a lot of rooms with their workers.”
The 2032 Olympic Games will only exacerbate the problem, with Rockhampton set to host the rowing and canoe sprint events. Independent research from Tourism Events Queensland estimates that an additional 1,219 short-term accommodation rooms are needed in the region before the Games. “We’re waiting for that work to be redone to see what that figure will be, but at the moment we’re standing here with high 90% occupancies across our region for much of the year,” Ms Carroll said.