In a ‘‘game-changing deal’’, two Queenstown hotels have leased a former downtown hostel for worker accommodation to help attract and retain staff.
The company that owns Novotel and Fernhill’s Kamana Lakehouse has signed a long-term lease, effective this coming Tuesday, on the former YHA building in Shotover Street, which has 30 rooms and manager’s accommodation.
Over winter it was leased as staff digs by local skifield operator NZSki.
Novotel GM Jim Moore’s hailing the deal as a game-changer.
He’s had 25 to 30 staff living in his hotel since June, when the housing crisis first bit, but says that’s not a ‘‘sustainable’’ solution.
He notes prospective employees, based overseas, ‘‘are looking online and going, ‘oh, it looks like it’s going to be a problem finding accommodation’, so they’re not coming, so if we can offer that, it will get around that problem’’.
Novotel HR manager Catherine Monaghan says the digs will also help ‘‘a lot of long-term staff still trying to find accommodation as well’’.
Moore, who’s looking for someone to manage the new housing, says they’re also making their accommodation affordable, as the cost of rentals is currently just as much a problem as their availability, as another local hotelier, The Rees’ Mark Rose, recently highlighted in Mountain Scene.
Moore says ‘‘none of us probably want to run staff accommodation, but we really need it’’.
‘‘We have worked to find solutions to the current housing crisis in Queenstown, caused largely by legislation around long-term rentals and the proliferation of short-term rentals that is taking housing for workers out of the market.
‘‘This is going to be a significant issue for Queenstown until longer-term solutions are found.’’
A former requirement by Queenstown’s council for hotels to provide staff accommodation was dropped a long time ago.
