Over the past four years, an average of over 1200 new rooms per year has opened, reports canberratimes.com.au.

Since 2014, 24 new hotels have opened which may have been driven by the infrastructure reductions Brisbane City council offered to four and five-star hotel developers.  

The four-star, $100 million Callie Hotel in Fortitude Valley is the latest hotel to open, with 175 rooms added to the city tally. This follows the opening of the first five-star hotel in Brisbane for twenty years, the W hotel; which opened earlier this year and includes 312 rooms. Others in the pipeline include 286 rooms at the Westin Hotel due to open in November, and 164 rooms for the Howard Smith Wharves Art Series Hotel set to open later in the year.

Lord mayor Graham Quirk told the publication that the boom in hotel rooms isn’t affecting occupancy adversely. While the national occupancy average is around 71 per cent, Brisbane is sitting at 76 per cent.

“Despite the offering that is out there, the fresh new significant number of new hotels, the occupancy rate levels have stayed up,” he said.

In other big hotel news for the city, theurbandeveloper.com reported this week that Hong Kong-based Ovolo Hotel Group will be spending $55 million on the former Emporium Hotel in Fortitude Valley which they purchased earlier this year. This property will re-open next month.

Speaking to the Financial Review earlier in the year, General Manager of the Holiday Inn Express Brisbane Central Hotel, which opened in 2017, said the city has a great energy.

“Brisbane is simply not the sleepy country town everyone imagines – it's got a strongly emerging entertainment and restaurant scene, plus the weather is perfect."