[COM] Adelaide Airport Hotel - | 25m | 8 levels | $50m
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:07 pm
$50 million hotel to be built at Adelaide Airport
Paul Starick, Chief Reporter, The Advertiser
October 21, 2016 9:30pm
Subscriber only
AIRLINE passengers will walk directly from a new 165-room hotel into Adelaide Airport’s terminal – the first major stage of a $2 billion expansion.
Plans for the $50 million hotel, exclusively revealed by The Advertiser, show the seven-storey building and its road entrance replacing the defunct vehicle northern ramp to the terminal’s second-floor check-in area.
Construction of the Atura-branded hotel, mostly sited on the old car park to the terminal’s north, is expected to start in April next year, ahead of an opening in the last quarter of 2018.
Adelaide Airport managing director Mark Young said the hotel would cater for passengers catching early-morning flights, particularly after meetings or conferences.
The “urban, industrial and design-inspired” hotel will include a restaurant, bar, business, centre and flexible function and meeting spaces.
The hotel will be the biggest step yet in a $2 billion expansion detailed in an airport masterplan released in 2014, which also included tripling the terminal’s size by 2044 and building several multi-storey office buildings in a new business area.
“This really kicks off our long-term vision to create an easy, seamless connection between our aeronautical activities and our planned Airport Business District,” Mr Young said.
“More than 8700 people are directly employed on the airport and many business people fly to Adelaide to conduct business solely at the airport.
“We expect demand to grow as passenger numbers continue to increase and we develop our ... infrastructure.”
The “urban, industrial and design-inspired” hotel will include a restaurant, bar, business, centre and flexible function and meeting spaces.
About 350 jobs will be created during the hotel’s construction and a further 45 jobs when it opens.
A walkway will connect the terminal, plaza space and the hotel, just to the north of an existing covered bridge linking the terminal to the multi-storey carpark.
It is understood passenger pick-up and drop-offs will continue on the ground level just to the west of the terminal.
Atura is operated by Event Hospitality and Entertainment, which also has brands including Rydges, Event cinemas, QT Hotel and Resorts, Art Series Hotels and Thredbo Resort.
Event group managing director David Seargeant said the hotel would have a focus on “great design” and quality food and drink, which he believed would appeal to airport visitors as well as hotel guests. The restaurant, bar and lobby will be accessible by all airport patrons.
The hotel will be the biggest step yet in a $2 billion expansion, which includes tripling the terminal’s size by 2044 and building several multi-storey office buildings in a new business area.
Domestic passenger numbers have reached seven million annually on the back of 1.9 per cent growth, according to Adelaide Airport’s 2015-16 annual report.
International passenger numbers – now more than 857,000 annually – are expected to rebound from a recent slump after Qatar Airlines connection to Doha launched in May and China Southern’s launch in December of operations to Guangzhou, in mainland China.
Tourism Minister Leon Bignell said the new hotel would be a significant investment in the travel industry’s infrastructure.
“The South Australian visitor economy is currently at a record $5.95 billion and we are working hard to achieve our goal of an $8 billion tourism industry by 2020,” he said.
In the airport’s annual report, Mr Young says planning continues on the terminal expansion outlined in the masterplan and work is expected to start within a year.
Forecast further passenger growth to 18.1 million annually by 2034 - up from 7.89 million now - is expected to underpin the expansion, which is expected to generate about 20,000 jobs.
