The Marriott set to bring 5-star luxury to Darwin
The Marriott International is doubling down on efforts to launch a five star hotel in Darwin.
The international luxury hotel chain, which has 30 brands and over 7000 properties in 131 countries, believes it’s time for a luxury build on the Darwin Waterfront.
The Marriott wants to put Darwin on the global luxury hotel map.
“The Marriott International website is the seventh biggest consumer website in the world,” Marriott International vice president Hotel Development Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Richard Crawford said.
“The appetite for people to book online is immense and Darwin will be among the sites people across the globe will see. The way to be more prominent as a destination is to have people like the Marriott taking Darwin to the market with our brand. It is very powerful when you are a small jurisdiction with a small marketing budget that you have a major international chain doing the heavy lifting for you.
“Marriott’s view is that Darwin is exceptionally well placed. Domestic leisure tourism is fuelling high occupancy rates and high average nightly rates across regional Australia and that's the silver lining.”
Crawford believes that post COVID, not only Australians are seeing city life in a different light. The cities may no longer be seen as safe havens to holiday.
Our regional centres on the other hand, and places like the Territory, are now seen as the places to be.
“They (Australians) are looking for somewhere to relax in a safe environment because they can’t travel overseas. It is opening up migration opportunities where people are saying that they don’t need to live in the CBDs of Sydney or Melbourne anymore. They are saying ‘I can actually work from somewhere else’,” Crawford said.
“We are seeing real change to the paradigm of how people view, not only their holidays, but the way they live.
“Darwin is in a very good position. I think what we see now because of Covid is a sustained renaissance in domestic leisure travel. The memory of Covid will not be like other blips we have had in international travel. Covid is far more serious and has far more lasting effects in terms of people’s appetite to travel offshore.
“So within Australia and the Northern Territory other destinations will enjoy sustained popularity. Then when people are eventually travelling to Australia I think our reputation, our appeal as a destination, much like others that have a clean safe reputation will be a beneficiary.”
Crawford was also buoyed by the Territory’s move to become an energy resource hub, which he says will increase the region’s population and fuel its economy, which in turn will see the requirement for an upscale hotel and “underpin the success of a five star Marriott hotel in Darwin.”
14th July 2021
