National

Olympics hotel shock: Queensland running out of rooms

May 20, 2026

BRISBANE STOCK — Hotel building across Brisbane has almost stopped despite strong bookings. -AAP Image

Queensland is expected to deliver less than a quarter of the hotel rooms needed for the 2032 Olympics as building fails to keep up with growing visitor demand, new analysis shows.

Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content

Hotel building across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast has almost stopped despite strong bookings and higher room rates, according to a report by the Property Council of Australia released on Wednesday.

Just one new hotel opened across the three regions in the past 12 months – the Mondrian at Burleigh Heads – the 2026 Queensland Hotel Market Outlook found.

The state's hotel shortage is now a long‑term problem, not a short‑term dip, Property Council Queensland executive director Jess Caire said.

"The demand is here, the global spotlight is coming, but the rooms are not," she said.

"Queensland's hotel markets are doing exactly what we would hope – attracting visitors, lifting occupancy and driving strong returns, yet the supply response has stalled completely."

Queensland is now well behind the state government's own hotel targets, according to the report prepared by CBRE for the Property Council.

On current trends, the planned pipeline will deliver about 24 per cent of the 14,700 extra rooms needed by 2032 and only nine per cent of the long‑term 40,000‑room Destination 2045 goal.

Hotel markets across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast are already tighter than before the pandemic, CBRE head of hotels research Ally Gibson said.

"Across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, just one new hotel opened in the past 12 months – the Mondrian in Burleigh Heads," she said.

"One exceptional property in three major markets – that tells you everything about the supply problem we face."

Hotels are expensive to build and must carry rising construction, finance and running costs for years before they settle into steady trading, Ms Gibson said.

Construction costs for mid‑ to high‑end hotels have risen close to 40 per cent since 2019, with a further 18 per cent increase expected across 2026 and 2027, according to CBRE.

"The gap between what a hotel costs to build and what it can earn is widening every month," Ms Gibson said.

"Projects that didn't stack up last year stack up even less today. The market is performing – the economics of building are broken."

Room‑night demand in past Olympic host cities has usually been higher in the second and third years after the games than during the event itself, according to the report.

Queensland's hotel pipeline needs to cover the decade after 2032, not just the two weeks of competition, the Property Council said.