A portfolio of some of the world’s leading resorts, including the Ayers Rock Resort near Uluru and Queensland’s Lizard Island are to be offered for sale through Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels.
The GPT Group (General Property Trust Limited) has retained Jones Lang La Salle to market the Voyages Hotels & Resorts portfolio. GPT said it wanted to give over its tourism assets to concentrate on its core investment portfolio, funds management and development opportunities.
GPT owns high quality hotel assets including resorts in some of Australia’s most unique locations and the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel in Darling Harbour, Australia’s largest hotel by number of rooms (630 rooms and 45 suites). Through Voyages, the Group manages resort properties which represent one of the largest portfolios of nature based assets in Australia. These include Ayers Rock Resort, Lizard Island, Bedarra Island, El Questro Homestead and Wilderness Park, Wrotham Park Lodge and others.
“With unparalleled locations to Australia’s natural icons such as Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef, many of the destinations on offer have significant barriers to entry for competition,” said David Gibson, CEO Asia Pacific, Jones Lang La Salle. Whilst the portfolio may be acquired with vacant possession of management, the Voyages management platform offers a solid capability for ongoing management of the portfolio.
“The Voyages management platform has excellent expansion potential and is capable of being immediately scaled up to create a resort management company to provide third party management globally,” said Craig Collins, Jones Lang La Salle managing director.
He added, “The ability to acquire a fully developed management platform is an excellent opportunity for owner/operators or owners wishing to develop a management business.“
The Tourism Forecasting Council (TFC) expects that international visitors to Australia will increase at an average rate of 4.4 per cent per annum between 2007 and 2017 to reach 8.7 million. This compares with growth of 2.7 per cent between 1997 and 2007.
