Hospitality Design - May 2014 - 161

david
seargeant

perspectives

interview

By Kathleen Kervin
Photography courtesy of QT Hotels

FINDING SOME QT
1
A hotelier pushes a design-forward
approach in Australia

1
Toward the end of 2011, Australia's Amalgamated
Holdings Limited (AHL) set out to create a new
hotel experience in the country with the launch
of QT Gold Coast-a 1950s and '60s-inspired
property that is "nostalgic surfer chic meets
Miami swim catwalk." The opening marked the
beginning of a design-centered hotel brand that
AHL CEO and QT Hotels & Resort's managing
director David Seargeant says fills a missing
niche in Australia's hospitality landscape. The
Gold Coast property was followed quickly by
the launch of the Mad Men-esque QT Port
Douglas, which opened in north Queensland;
a ski resort in Victoria at QT Falls Creek; and
flagship property QT Sydney-the brand's third
collaboration with New South Wales-based Nic
Graham and Associates. QT enlisted Graham
again with the QT Canberra, located in the
nation's capital in the former Lakeside hotel
and launched last month. Here, Seargeant
discusses creating a hotel brand that's "not for
everyone," his hands-on approach, and what QT
actually means.

1. QT Sydney is housed
in two iconic buildings:
the former State Theatre
and Gowings department
store.

You've been in the hotel business for
more than 30 years. Why did you start
the QT brand?

The hotel market in Australia had not had any
new supply for quite a number of years. The last
real growth curve for hotel construction was
back in '86 through '88, and we still haven't really
experienced, as many cities around the world
have experienced, the design-led hotel style-
the hip, boutique-style hotel. We saw through
experience and what our customers were asking
for, and also what we had seen in other major
cities around the world, that there was a very
clear gap in the market for this style of hotel.
Given that in addition to being hotel operators, we
are a hundred-year-old company and we've got
extensive property interests, we had the ability to
develop our own hotel properties, which put us in
a relatively unique position. Most hotel operators
are operators only, so therefore they've got to

convince owners of the style of hotel they want to
operate. We're able to look at converting several
hotels that we owned to this new brand. The first
one was on the Gold Coast, the second one was
a resort in Queensland, but the brand was really
born out of a desire to create this flagship hotel
in Sydney in the State Theatre building, which
we own, where we previously held our corporate
office, and we were able to acquire the building
immediately adjacent, which is the highest foottrafficked corner in Australia, right in the very
center of Sydney. We saw that as a wonderful
opportunity to create this new, exciting flagship
hotel for our new brand.

The adjacent building, that was the
former Gowings department store?

It was the department store on the ground
level, two basement levels, and two levels
above ground. We redeveloped that space and

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