Hotel staff in firing line if quarantine moved to regions, industry warns

“We have to realise that the accommodation industry in Queensland, regardless of what we are hearing reported in the media, is running at about a 10 to 15 per cent occupancy rate. No business can run at that level for long,” Mr Hogan said.

“Those accommodation members who have contracts right now will be affected, and they are some of the few ones that employ staff.”

Brisbane was thrown into a sudden three-day lockdown earlier this month and saw restrictions such as mandatory mask wearing in place until Friday morning as a result of an outbreak of the UK strain at Brisbane’s Hotel Grand Chancellor.

Mr Hogan argued that far from running out of control, the cluster was limited to just six cases, which he said was a testament and warning for the state’s health authorities.

“Queensland has been exceptional in containing the virus. The UK virus didn’t escape, [the quarantine] was run well,” he said.

“So I think we have to stop pointing the finger saying ‘watch out’. We need more carrot and less stick, otherwise you will lose public commitment to it.”

The QHA represents hotels, motels, convention centres and other accommodation providers across the state, as well as pubs and clubs.

Mr Hogan said that after a year of living under the pandemic, many venues were teetering on the brink.

While venues would be dealing with the tail end of school holiday accommodation and looking forward to business accommodation moving in to fill the vacancies, that was not happening this year due to interstate movement restrictions.

He said many venues were facing the prospect of single-digit occupancy all the way to Easter and beyond, which would result in a number of them shuttering if nothing more was done to help.

Mr Hogan was speaking at the public hearing of the parliamentary committee overseeing the extension of the Chief Health Officer’s emergency powers, granted to her last year to make public health directions during the pandemic.

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The CHO, Dr Jeannette Young, also addressed the hearing later in the day on Friday, saying she believed hotel quarantine had worked well, but it needed to adapt to changing circumstances.

“We’ve now had 63,000 people who’ve been through our hotel quarantine system, and we’ve really only had one breach. So it has been managed very effectively to date,” Dr Young said.

“It’s important to continually look at what we are doing, whether we can improve our processes.”

While also giving submissions to the hearing on Friday, the Queensland Human Rights Commission and the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties expressed support for hotel quarantine being moved to regional areas.

Both groups cited the vital need for access to fresh air in quarantine. Dr Young clamped down on any fresh-air breaks in quarantine hotels late last year.