Hundreds of enquiries have been fielded and bookings have been made up to 2020 for Howard Smith Wharves (HSW) event spaces, reports thebrisbanetimes.com.au. A great feat seeing the event space isn’t even open yet.  

Bookings have been made for a multitude of events including weddings, conference, award dinners, galas, and exhibitions.

‘The Rivershed’ and ‘Howards Hall’ event spaces will be some of the first sections of the $110 million development to open next month, with the construction lease for the site in place until 2020. ‘The Houses,’ a third event space, which will cater for smaller events, is scheduled to open in February next year.

HSW events general manager, Scott Bayne told the publication that he is thrilled the opening of the event spaces is just around the corner.

“Brisbane is a thriving hub for business and the arts, as well as a place defined by its strong sense of community.

“It was therefore essential for us to create welcoming, ownable spaces within the precinct that could be constantly transformed for any event size or type – be it runway shows or gala dinners, product launches or weddings,” said Mr. Bayne.

In other big HSW news, David Finlayson has been appointed as director of culinary. A big job considering the project is set to become one of Brisbane’s premiere food and beverage locations – ‘a culinary hub to be reckoned with’ as HSW put it themselves. David will oversee the entire food and beverage offering including the Overwater bar, Felons Brewing Co., Howards Hall and Rivershed events and another restaurant and wine bar which is yet to be names.

The 3.43 hectare HSW development site will include; 2.7 hectares of open public space, 164-room boutique five-star hotel, function space to accommodation 1000 people, and a variety of food and beverage establishments. 

Over the past four years, an average of over 1200 new rooms per year has opened, reports canberratimes.com.au.

Since 2014, 24 new hotels have opened which may have been driven by the infrastructure reductions Brisbane City council offered to four and five-star hotel developers.  

The four-star, $100 million Callie Hotel in Fortitude Valley is the latest hotel to open, with 175 rooms added to the city tally. This follows the opening of the first five-star hotel in Brisbane for twenty years, the W hotel; which opened earlier this year and includes 312 rooms. Others in the pipeline include 286 rooms at the Westin Hotel due to open in November, and 164 rooms for the Howard Smith Wharves Art Series Hotel set to open later in the year.

Lord mayor Graham Quirk told the publication that the boom in hotel rooms isn’t affecting occupancy adversely. While the national occupancy average is around 71 per cent, Brisbane is sitting at 76 per cent.

“Despite the offering that is out there, the fresh new significant number of new hotels, the occupancy rate levels have stayed up,” he said.

In other big hotel news for the city, theurbandeveloper.com reported this week that Hong Kong-based Ovolo Hotel Group will be spending $55 million on the former Emporium Hotel in Fortitude Valley which they purchased earlier this year. This property will re-open next month.

Speaking to the Financial Review earlier in the year, General Manager of the Holiday Inn Express Brisbane Central Hotel, which opened in 2017, said the city has a great energy.

“Brisbane is simply not the sleepy country town everyone imagines – it's got a strongly emerging entertainment and restaurant scene, plus the weather is perfect."

Domestic tourism in Brisbane skyrocketed in the year to June 2018, growing by 4.5% to $7.1 million, reports Tourism and Events Queensland in their latest Domestic Tourism Snapshot.

Strong growth of 11.4% was recorded in overnight domestic visitor expenditure, up to $4.4 billion. Total expenditure was driven up by visitor spend per night which increased by 4.8%. Visitors travelling for the purpose of a holiday grew 20.9% to a record 2.1 million visitors. Travelling for the purpose of business was steady at 1.8 million visitors but these travelers stayed longer which saw a jump in business nights by 24.7% to record levels of 4.7 million. This business travel growth was due to the interstate market which increased by 10.3% to 1.1 million.

The Commonwealth Games, NRL matches, and the Ireland Rugby Test may be linked to these good results, along with high commercial accommodation rates and demand which are likely to have had an effect on the expenditure figures.

Acting Brisbane Mayor Adrian Schrinner told choose.brisbane.com.au the results come as no surprise.

“With world-class events and an enviable outdoor lifestyle, it’s no surprise Aussies are being lured – hook, line and sinker – to our New World City.

“New restaurants, bars and experiences are also creating interest in the city as a lifestyle destination, giving tourists more reasons to visit.

“Aussies are falling in love with Brisbane as a holiday destination. Major events attract visitors from around Australia and contribute more than $150 million in economic impact to Brisbane each year,” said Cr Schrinner.

Queensland as a whole also recorded excellent results:

• Total expenditure – up by 10.3% to $17 billion
• Total visitors – up to 4.7% to 22.5 million
• Intrastate visitors – up to 4.6% to 15.7 million
• Interstate visitors – up by 4.9% to 6.7 million
• Purpose of domestic overnight visit – ‘holiday’ up 7.3% to 8.895 million.

Cyclists are set to benefit from redesign of the Brisbane CBD Victoria Bridge with dedicated off-road lanes for cyclists to be included as part of the Brisbane Metro project, reports www.yourneighbourhood.com.au

The cycle lanes (one in each direction) will be painted a distinctive green, and the previous four lanes for bus and metro transport will reduce to three.  The bridge will be classified as a ‘green’ bridge with cars to be eliminated from the traffic flow.

Brisbanetimes.com.au reports the new design will improve Southbank to city access for cyclists and is welcomed by local cycling groups. Bicycle Queensland's Anne Savage estimates that cycle traffic across the bridge may increase by double to around 1600 cycle trips per day.

Deputy mayor Adrian Schrinner told the brisbanetimes.com.au the $944 million Brisbane Metro project will “revolutionise” city travel.

“Council will undertake further community engagement on the changes to the Victoria Bridge and Melbourne Street pedestrian and cyclist access, and inner-city traffic network over the coming weeks," Cr Schrinner told brisbanetimes.com.au.

Expressions of interest have been submitted from 5 parties to build the Brisbane Metro infrastructure. Work for the project is expected to commence in 2019, with an anticipated completion of the end of 2022.

An artist impression fly through of the new bridge configuration can be found at  http://www.yourneighbourhood.com.au/victoriabridge-brisbanecbd/

Financial commentator Peter Switzer has shed some positive light of the current state of the national deficit in a recent article on switzer.com.au.

In May 2017 the budget deficit for 2017/18 was predicted to be $29.4 billion. Fast forward to May 2018 and this figure has been revised down to $18.2 billion. Now, four months later, that figure has dropped once again to $10.1 billion.

With regards to Government debt, the figure of $342 billion was announced in June 2018 (18.6% of GDP) which is $13 billion lower than what was predicted in the 2017/18 budget.

Another notable figure was rolling annual debt – the smallest in nine years. Since the year to March 2009, this figure was $6,563 million.

Mr Switzer says these figures show public debt is on the right track and the quicker the economy gets to surplus, the better. In the Howard/Costello era of Labor in government, the surplus at that time, coupled with the mining boom, gave Labor “ammunition to fight the forces of recession and helped us keep unemployment under 6%.” This was at a time when the USA has employment sitting at 10%.  

The Australian newspaper has indicated a surplus is “in sight ahead of election,” which will no doubt have the politicians touting the positive news in upcoming campaigns.

All eyes are on Donald Trump and the USA trade agreements with regards to Australia achieving the surplus that is possibly within reach, indicates Mr Swtizer.  If these ‘trade wars’ turn sour, they could in fact lead to a stock market crash which would in turn affect the Australian economy.

Businessinsider.com.au reports that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says the good results are due to employment and stronger economic growth which increased personal income tax and company tax payments. Welfare reliance for working age Australians is now “lowest level in 25 years and in 2017-18.”

“This Final Budget Outcome builds on the release of the National Accounts earlier this month, which showed that the economy grew 3.4% through the year — the fastest rate of growth since the September quarter 2012 during the height of the mining investment boom and faster than any G7 economy,” said Mr Frydenberg.