Chinese New Year

The hotels in Syd are packed...................................Chinese through Mascot

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Sydney hotels brimming with guests for Chinese New Year

Date
February 18, 2015 - 11:44PM

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Leesha McKenny

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Strong start: Tourists have flooded into Sydney for Chinese New Year festivities, which will include a performance from these children in the Counting Sheep segment of the Twilight Parade. Photo: Cole Bennetts

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The Year of Sheep is off to a strong start for Sydney's hotels, many of which are close to capacity for this week's Chinese New Year celebrations.
Accor, whose venues include Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, Pullman Sydney Hyde Park and Novotel Sydney Central, is reporting almost 95 per cent capacity in its CBD hotels on Thursday, the first day of the lunar new year.
Bookings in the company's Sydney metropolitan area hotels are at more than 90 per cent for the same night.
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But February 19 marks only the start of celebrations that will run until March 1 – the longest and most important festival in the Chinese calendar.
Accor's average occupancy rate is forecast to top 97 per cent across its city hotels and more than 91 per cent across its metropolitan hotels for the final two weeks of February.
A spokeswoman for the company said this was a "significantly better" result than the previous Chinese New Year, when the group's city hotels reported almost 88 per cent occupancy and its metro hotels 80 per cent