Fitzroy Island Resort off Cairns in Far North Queensland has just come onto the market amid a flurry of investment interest in the Great Barrier Reef. It is the first time the property has been offered for sale since it opened in 2011. 

The listing is 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," said Trudy Crooks from Resort Brokers Australia, who is selling Fitzroy Island Resort. "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."

For sale is the Fitzroy Island Resort tourism business, perpetual leasehold and associated development opportunities. 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 (leased to an outside operator), 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.  

Fitzroy Island Resort has 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. Doug Gamble’s Fitzroy Island Investments also holds a 20-year lease over the adjacent 2ha Cairns Regional Council Campgrounds and is in the early stages of developing that property.

The resort, together with the campgrounds and adjacent properties, constitute all available commercial land on Fitzroy Island, and it is all controlled by the vendor.

Fitzroy Island, dominated by pristine tropical rainforest and surrounded by fringing reefs and crystal clear waters, is a paradise for snorkeling, diving, glass bottom boat tours, kayaking, stand-up paddleboarding, and walking to explore its natural and historic attractions. Figures from Tourism Tropical North Qld 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. 

Expressions of interest close on Thursday, October 27. 

This article was first published in TheHotelConversation.

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