Fitzroy Island for sale
Fitzroy Island Resort off Cairns in Far North Queensland has been listed for sale amid surging growth in the region’s tourism sector.
Resort Brokers Australia will launch a six-week international campaign to sell the Fitzroy Island Resort tourism business.
The resort, the only one on the 339-hectare National Park island, is owned and operated by a Darwin-based property development and management group headed by Doug Gamble.
The family company, whose interests also include Darwin’s Crocosaurus Cove attraction, bought the property in 2010 as a partially built upscale resort fallen victim to the GFC.
Since then, they have painstakingly developed the resort, which covers 4.312 hectares with a 440-metre beach frontage to Welcome Bay on Fitzroy Island, 30 kilometres south-east of Cairns, within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
Offered now for the first time since opening in 2011, it includes a 102-room 4.5-star resort hotel, multiple food and beverage outlets, conference and wedding venues, leisure facilities, dive shop, general store and mooring facilities.
Also part of the sale is a 190-seat high-speed catamaran ferry service, the ‘Fitzroy Flyer’, operating three services daily (45 minutes to the island) and packaged day tours from Cairns.
Resort Brokers Australia managing director, Ian Crooks, national sales manager Trudy Crooks, and FNQ senior broker Shane Mullins have been appointed with offers due Thursday, October 27.
“This is a rare and valuable tourism asset in one of the most desirable destinations on the planet, so we can expect substantial interest from both local and international buyers including large hotel operators and investors,” Ms Crooks said.
“Not only is this near new property already generating a steady and growing income, projected to exceed $2.7 million in FY17, it comes with outstanding growth opportunities and genuine barriers to entry from outside competition.”
Fitzroy Island Resort is selling with development approvals and plans for future stages, including up to 75 more rooms, and extensive infrastructure including a water supply spring, dam and pipeline on title, sewerage treatment and power plants, and staff accommodation.
Figures from Tourism Tropical North Qld (TTNQ) point to recent record growth for the region.
Domestic visitors grew 33.5 per cent to 2.2 million with a 35 per cent rise in expenditure to $2.4 billion for the year ended March 2016. Domestic visitor nights rose 19% to 10.5 million.
International visitor expenditure was $1.1 billion, an increase of 13 per cent, and total international visitor numbers grew 11 per cent to 830,000.
Fitzroy Island Resort enters the market on the back of heightened investment interest in the Great Barrier Reef, hot on the heels of the recent sale of the South Molle Island resort in the Whitsundays to Shanghai-based China Capital Investment.
CCIG had earlier bought the nearby Daydream Island resort, where it is undertaking a major redevelopment, while another major Chinese company, White Horse Group, bought Lindeman Island in late 2012.
“We’re seeing a new wave of investor interest including the redevelopment of Hayman, planned expansion of Hamilton, and redevelopments on Daydream, Lindeman and Brampton islands,” Ms Crooks said.
“But while that activity is happening in central Queensland, Fitzroy Island Resort is the only island opportunity in Queensland’s tropical north, with proximity and easy access to the major international gateway of Cairns Airport.”