Coolum Beach Holiday Park receives a $520,000 upgrade

Sunshine Coast Council’s Coolum Beach Holiday Park is about to undergo a $520,000 upgrade to cater for the ever-growing number of guests discovering this affordable beach-side getaway.

Divisional councillor Stephen Robinson said the project would see 70 small sites which averaged 64sq m converted to 46 larger sites averaging 100sq m each.

“These sites are in premium location within the camping grounds, as they are located closest to the beach,” Cr Robinson said.

“This upgrade will meet the demand for larger, well-drained sites to cater for today’s larger campervans and motorhomes.

“The upgrades will include power, water and sullage points for grey water.  Internal roads will be sealed and, together with other drainage works, this will be an all-weather camping and caravan park.

“Coolum is one of two council-owned,  dog-friendly family holiday parks on the Sunshine Coast – the other at Mudjimba.

“Bringing along your pet is becoming very popular and guests need to contact the park and apply to have their dog accompany them on their holiday.”

Cr Robinson said it the majority of work was planned to be completed before the September school holidays.

“Coolum is a quintessential Australian surf beach and like all of council’s other holiday parks at Dicky Beach, Mooloolaba, Maroochydore, Cotton Tree and Mudjimba, it is on beach frontage,” he said.

“The park is set on 4ha and guests have direct access to the patrolled surf, making it one of the Sunshine Coast’s most popular camping and caravan destinations.

“We continually invest in our facilities to ensure they are up there with the best. These upgrades are in addition to the new amenity building which replaced the old block in 2012.”

The upgrades will be funded from the Sunshine Coast family holiday parks’ capital budget.

Following the upgrade, facilities at the park will include 210  powered tourist caravan and camping sites,  three unpowered tent sites and six villas.

Caravan Industry Association of Australia spokesperson Callie Henderson said Queensland’s Sunshine Coast was a famous holiday spot for caravanners and campers, not only for the beautiful weather, but for the sense of community found in caravan and holiday parks.

“We are delighted that the new developments to the Coolum Beach Holiday Park will add value to the park for the local community and for the community of campers that come to stay throughout the year,” Ms Henderson said.

According to the Association, 90% of all site nights are spent in regional Australia, with more than 10 million spent in Queensland’s caravanning and camping sectors in the year ending March 2014.

FAST FACTS:

•More than 10,000,000 site nights were spent in Queensland’s caravanning and camping sector in the year ending March 2014

•Expenditure by caravanning and camping consumers is approximately $7b annually[2]

•90% of all site nights are in regional Australia

•85% of the Australian population has stayed in a caravan holiday park at least once in their life

•There are 170,000 powered and unpowered sites available nightly in Australia. At an average occupancy rate of 54% this means 86,000 sites go unused nightly around the country

•Queensland had the highest percentage of registered campervans in 2013 at 23.8% of all registered campervans

•Queensland accounted for approximately 34% of the gross increase in registrations across Australia between 2012 and 2013

•The total number of registered RVs in Queensland reached 131,586 in 2013, up from 122,494 the previous year

•There were 528,869 RVs registered in 2013. Of these registered vehicles 474,783 are towed product (i.e. caravans, camper trailers, tent trailers, and other towed RVs) while 54,103 are motorised (i.e. motorhome or campervan)

•Caravan registrations increased 5.96% to January 2012 – the highest recorded against other motor vehicle types

Source:  Caravan Industry Association of Australia