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Letter from the President: June 2019
How busy is Byron really? – a statistical approach to the topic A number of media outlets have recently claimed that Byron Bay is experiencing ‘over-tourism’. Most inevitably reference the UK tour company Responsible Travel who compiled a list of global towns experiencing over-tourism based on ‘news reports’, with no regard for the underlying statistics. All articles mentioning over-tourism in our shire inevitably include a mention of our short-term holiday rental situation and a quote from a local councillor for [...]
STR’s benchmarking initiative
Data is critical, but data without context only captures a small portion of a much bigger picture. Benchmarking – that is, comparing your own data against that of your competitors – is something Paul Hammond, the Business Development Manager at STR, spoke about in detail at the 2019 Destination Byron Tourism Symposium. STR delivers bespoke benchmarking reports to accommodation providers free-of-charge that capture three performance metrics: Occupancy Average daily rate Revenue per available room From there, property owners and operators [...]
Sustainability and collaboration at the 2019 Destination Byron Tourism Symposium
The 2019 Destination Byron Tourism Symposium (June 7, Elements of Byron) may have kicked-off in outer-space, but the day’s core message was firmly rooted right here on the ground. Sustainability and collaboration were themes that ran through all ten presentations, from the crowd-favourite ‘Top 10 Travel Trends’ right the way through to Byron Shire Council’s approach to tourism engagement. When it came to sustainability, the potential effects of over-tourism on the environment was a hot topic. In his presentation, [...]
What has driven Byron’s property market?
With a population of 34,500 people and a median house price of $987,500 (as of December 2018), Byron Bay is Australia’s most expensive city. The table above shows the values of houses and units in Byron Bay. Through the first quartile, prices are significantly higher than the state average. What has driven Byron’s property market? Byron Bay has averaged double-digit growth every single year for two decades, with median house prices increasing by an average of 10.1 per cent over [...]
Letter from the President: May 2019
Does our region have an ideal mix of visitor types? and if so, what can be done to attract and retain them? It’s a huge question, but that’s exactly what the 2019 Ballina Byron Gateway Airport Annual Byron Tourism Symposium is asking members of the local visitor economy to consider. Now in its sixth year, Destination Byron’s hallmark event will take place on Friday, 7 June at Elements of Byron resort. We’ve now finalised a multi-faceted line-up of local and [...]