Queensland hotel boom as cool new properties prepare to open

Queensland is set for a busy year of hotel openings in 2024.

In Brisbane alone, a mix of hotels is due to open, mostly thanks to the 12-hectare, riverfront, $3.6 billion Queen’s Wharf development finally coming to maturity in April.

The Star Brisbane comprises two crescent-shaped towers with interiors by international design studio Hassell. The hotel’s 340 rooms are crowned by four opulent penthouses on the top two floors affording uninterrupted panoramas across the Brisbane River, and west to Mount Coot-tha.

Hotel guests will have access to three pools on the resort’s Leisure Deck, a 12,000-square-metre open-air space, plus The Star Brisbane’s showpiece Sky Deck, a 250-metre rooftop “runway” of restaurants and bars.

The Queen’s Wharf precinct will also soon be home to the 4.5-star Dorsett Brisbane and a purported six-star, Rosewood Brisbane.

In the inner-northern Brisbane suburb of Spring Hill, The Hilton Garden Inn will open in late 2024, as part of the prolific expansion of the mid-range Garden Inn sub-brand worldwide.

LyLo Brisbane opens in early 2024, the first for Australia of EVT Hotels & Resorts’ youth-oriented LyLo brand which has expanded in New Zealand over the last couple of years. There’s one in Auckland, Christchurch and in Queenstown.

The Fortitude Valley pod hotel – a step up from a hostel with great tech, design, comfort and shared or private room options – will feature a rooftop “hangout space” that doubles as a social and working area. It has a self-catering kitchen and bar and retractable roof.

Also in Brisbane, after a $30-million refurbishment, the former Novotel Brisbane on Creek Street in the CBD opens December 2023 as the 296-room Amora Brisbane, with a Cottee Parker design aimed at positioning the Thai family owned, Amora Hotels and Resorts property as a five-star.