Although there has been some recovery in room occupancy rates at hotels, motels and serviced apartments since the financial crisis (see first chart below), establishments are maintaining their financial crisis levels of staffing (see second chart below), which must impact on the visitor experience somewhat and suggests hotels remain anxious about the future.

Of course, I’m assuming the drop in employment per establishment that occurred in 2008 was due to the financial crisis and wasn’t simply a continuation of the downward trend in employees per establishment over the previous decade, which must have been related to IT adoption and outsourcing. Given the sharpness of the drop in average employee levels in 2008, I’m reasonably confident it was related to the financial crisis rather than a continuation of the downward trend.

The relevant data were released by the ABS last Friday (Tourist Accommodation, Australia).