The Gold Coast is moving into another boom in tourism as 100 million Chinese are expected to go on overseas holidays by 2020 with 350,000 of them heading to the Gold Coast.
In the past 5 years visitors from China have increased by an average of 16% each year to 212,000 of which 25% visit the Gold Coast.
As a resident of the Gold Coast I certainly have noticed the significant increase over the last five years and I have to say I can’t see it slowing down any time soon. Nothing seems to put a smile on a Chinese tourists face more than strolling along the beach and taking a lot of photos of the sunrise. The smiles get bigger if they manage to find a surfer or two to get in their photo.
The great thing for investors is that you can capitalise on this opportunity and profit from it. Both the premier tourism exposures being Village Roadshow (VRL) and Ardent leisure (AAD) are listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Village Roadshow owns Seaworld, Movie World, WetnWild, Outback Spectactular, Paradise Country and Sydney’s Wet n Wild. Whilst Ardent Leisure are the owners of Dreamworld and White Water World.
One of China’s richest men, Wang Jianlin is currently building ‘Jewel’ which is a luxury hotel and residential development on the Gold Coast a few buildings up from where I live worth close to $1 billion.
Wang Jianlin’s intentions to capture the growing visitor numbers are very clear as Dalian Wanda Group which he founded plan to develop a theme park here as well. It is my view that it is cheaper to buy a theme park than build one and with both Ardent Leisure and Village Roadshow being heavily sold off over the past twelve months these stocks may be potential takeover targets.
Should no corporate activity eventuate, both Ardent Leisure and Village Roadshow operate some very attractive assets that are going to continue to pour out cash and dividends well into the future. Both stocks have been on a roller coaster ride of late so now it is time to get on board and ride the next boom.
