17 Dec 2019
Words Lisa Allen The Australian

Collective Hotel Management picks up apartment complexes in Geelong

The management rights to two major apartment complexes in the Victorian port city of Geelong have sold for nearly $10m.

The buyer is Collective Hotel Management, which has added to its portfolio of two luxury resorts in Noosa as well as a corporate hotel in the Brisbane suburb of Woolloongabba.

The sale of the management rights to the 60-unit Vue Apartments & Day Spa settled this week while the sale of the management rights to the 127-key Ritz Geelong, due for completion in late 2020, is awaiting settlement.

Glenn Millar, who handled the Vue sale for ResortBrokers with managing director Trudy Crooks, said: “There was a lot of interest in Vue Apartments and the Ritz from experienced operators and syndicates who now realise the serious potential that Geelong possesses for both the business and leisure market.”

“Geelong is such an under-supplied Victorian location with a high occupancy rate of around 77 per cent, while the total number of rooms grew by just 5.6 per cent in five years between 2011 and 2016,” Mr Millar said. He said there had been a major investment in business and infrastructure development in Geelong.

Collective Hotel Management director Michael Tozer said the two Geelong purchases were a “good fit” with his company’s accommodation assets.

“A lot of people enjoy our leisure products in Noosa, where there is a high expectation for quality service to accompany the quality location,” Mr Tozer said. “We think Geelong fits in very well with that.”

Vue Apartments consists of 60 modern serviced apartments providing studio, one and two-bedroom options aimed at corporate short-stay and leisure visitors.

Tourist numbers to the region rose 15.7 per cent last financial year to 5.9 million.