Metro Hospitality Group - The Year In Review - Metro Hotels

Our 36th year at Metro Hotels and the wider Metro Hospitality Group has seen us maintain our trading success as most properties continue to trade at high occupancies and robust room rates.

The Company enjoys a strong digital presence which is resulting in increasingly higher online bookings through our own Web site www.metrohotels.com.au, and a large network of social media engagements, and growing GDS (Global Distribution System) activity.
Traditional advertising and other forms of marketing have given way to promotion of our products through emailed newsletters, blogs, sites such as You Tube, Pinterest, and the social media playmakers Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and so on.

Back in 1976 when the Group originated, most business was secured through phone bookings, walk-ins, and travel agents, together with group bookings from tour wholesalers, inbound travel coordinators, local Australian bus companies, government departments, airlines, and sporting organisations.
While much of our group business still comes from the traditional sectors, individual, corporate, and government bookings are largely being made through our own Web site or third-party Web sites such as Wotif.com, Bookings.com,  RatestoGo.com, LastMinute.com.au,  Quick Beds, check-in.com.au, as well as the GDS, and international online booking engines including those operated by the Expedia group.

With a large percentage of business emanating online, room rates have been squeezed during low demand periods while at peak times they move substantially higher. Yield management allows our properties to optimise their rates commensurate with the level of demand in the market.

Metro Hotels was one of the first groups to recognise the importance of the Internet to the travel industry, employing its first IT Manager in the late 1990s. The Company continues to pour significant resources into this field as online reservations within our group, and in the industry at large, have become, or are fast becoming, the core facilitator of business.

During the year the Metro Hotel Sydney Central, one of two hotels we operate in Pitt Street, Sydney, has undergone an extensive refurbishment over several floors. Refurbishment of the balance of the hotel will commence in early 2013. A re-make of the Metro Hotel on Pitt is also planned while lesser-scale refurbishments have been carried out at Metro Hotel & Apartments  Gladstone (Queensland), Metro Hotel Perth, Metro Hotel Apartments Darling Harbour, and Metro Hotel Bank Place. An additional floor of rooms was added to the Metro Inn Miranda which has since been re-branded a Metro Hotel.

During the year the Company’s association with the Abood family, owners of Metro Inn Ryde came to an end when the family sold the property to an owner-operator. The association the Company had with the Abood family spanned 35 years, with the Metro Inn Ryde being the Company’s second hotel.
Despite the change of ownership, the property will continue to be known as Metro Inn Ryde as a result of a licensing agreement with the new owner. Work is proceeding on preparations for the redevelopment of Metro Hotel Perth which will involve in the first instance a new wing comprising 45 rooms.  It is hopeful construction will be underway in early 2013.