Highly sought hotel rooms in popular Queensland tourist towns could go unused this Christmas if the staffing crisis isn't urgently addressed, the Queensland Tourism Industry Council (QTIC) warns.
QTIC chief executive Brett Fraser said hotel operators who closed "entire floors" during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the lack of staff could be forced to repeat the drastic measures.
"We've still got over 6,000 vacancies across the tourism hospitality sector across the state," Mr Fraser said.
"As the demand increases coming into the Christmas holiday period, there's going to be more competition for labour and there's going to be more labour required.
"We're really hopeful that we can meet the demand we'll see over the Christmas period and we won't have that situation where we have rooms locked."
Montville restaurant and accommodation owner Ryan Purcell said rooms had been left empty at his Sunshine Coast hinterland business almost fortnightly for the past 18 months due to the staffing shortage.
"We try and limit that as much as possible," Mr Purcell said.
He said trading hours had been reduced and the number of restaurant guests capped, despite the business being the "busiest it's ever been" in its 15-year history.
"If there's an employee called in sick, we are acting on the run," he said.
"We're having to call staff in earlier or work longer shifts to cope with everything or even adjust people's check-in time to later than 2PM.
"There's plenty of business around, so the picture isn't all doom and gloom."
Booming trade
Sunshine Coast hotel general manager Brett Thompson said Christmas bookings at his Mooloolaba hotel were at levels never seen in its 18-year history.
"We're holding at least 70 per cent occupancy for the next four months, which is a record for this particular property," Mr Thompson said.
The peak in bookings comes after a record September for the business with 94 per cent occupancy across the school holiday period.
"We're up 75 per cent from last year, but comparing it to pre-COVID, which was June 2019, we're up 30 per cent," Mr Thompson said.
"We've had record levels of revenue now, probably for the last six months."
He said job advertisements for front office staff had gone unanswered for the past six weeks, but cleaning jobs were being filled as more international students returned after the peak of the pandemic.
As part of the federal government's Jobs and Skills Summit, peak body Tourism Accommodation Australia (TAA) called for campaigns to attract international workers to help ease the country's skills shortage.
TAA chief executive Michael Johnson said international student and holidaymakers had great potential to address the skills shortage ahead of the Christmas holidays.
"Over the next three months, we need to get people that are available to work," Mr Johnson said.
"We need to be promoting offshore for our working holidaymakers and international students to come this summer and that will certainly help.
"We're also working very closely with the local schools, particularly with those school leavers and encouraging them to stay in Australia this summer."
Brighter future?
Mr Johnson said the skills shortage was easing in particular departments across the hotel industry, but jobs like chefs were still in high demand.
"We've still got a long way to go, we were very hard hit, decimated throughout the pandemic and it's going to take some time for us to rebuild to what I'd say an absolute full cohort of employment," he said.
"It is improving and we're looking forward to a busy summer."
Mr Purcell said he hoped a spike in job applications received in the past fortnight would help his business operate at capacity over Christmas.
"Currently, we're employing under-qualified staff for different positions across the board," he said.
"We're also having to entice staff with free accommodation or free food, higher wages above the award."
He said he was confident the staff shortfall would be resolved.
"But pre-COVID, I don't see them days returning anytime soon, where you can actually choose which staff member you want to put on."
