THREE prominent Mount Gambier hotels will have to serve a combined 17,500 extra beers per year to cover increased power costs.
The prominent Mathews Hotels Group is among South East businesses grappling with seemingly ever-growing power price rises, facing an increase of almost $6000 a month in electricity costs.
The business owns and operates the South Eastern, Park and Mount Gambier hotels, along with other venues in Adelaide.
Forced to explore all options to sustain the business, Matthews Hotels Group Mount Gambier operations director Shaun Matthews said investing in new infrastructure to “go completely off the grid” was a possibility.
“We have already changed the lighting to LED, but diesel generation, solar and battery storage are all options that we are weighing up at the moment,” he said.
“Changing the lighting will make only a small difference with most of the electricity cost coming from refrigeration.
“Suppliers and distributors will be struggling with these costs even more I imagine.
“It is possible to go completely off grid and could be a benefit in the future.”
The South Eastern Hotel has this year alone faced a 29pc increase in electricity costs from $8500 a month to $11,000, the Park Hotel from $4700 to $6000 and the Mount Gambier Hotel from $7500 to $9500.
Matthews Hotel Group owner and Australian Hotels Association SA South East spokesperson Guy Matthews said electricity consumption was being monitored very closely.
“We are now working on twelve monthly contracts with our electricity suppliers because of unstable conditions in the marketplace,” he said.
Surprised that the price hike has not led to the closure of more hotels in the region, Shaun said this was just another price increase to add to the list of rising costs.
“Wages – especially with public holiday rates – beer prices, consumables and supplier costs all add up and we are forced to look at how to cut costs,” he said.
“In the end the consumer has to pay, but we can’t keep putting up our prices and we can’t keep absorbing all of these costs.
“Regional hotels have been hurt and we just have to be a lot smarter in how we do business.”
Mount Gambier Chamber of Commerce president Lynette Martin said receiving a power bill was becoming an increasingly nerve wracking time for local businesses in the city.
“It is another added impost to the cost of running a business – a hidden expense that business owners have to absorb that impacts the bottom line of profitability,” she said.
“They will have to start looking at alternative power sources or perhaps look at using a different supplier.
“By shopping around they might hopefully get a better deal.”
