Issue of the Month - Looking to grow your brand in Regional areas?
Many QSR’s are finding they have basically saturated the 14 Million people living in the main capital cities of Australia, and are looking to expand in the Regional Growth areas across the country.
Australia has basically populated around the outer eastern side of our great continent, with a smattering in the west, even though Perth has had the largest % growth in the past 5 years according to the 2011 Census figures. (See Figure 1)
Some of these areas outside of the major cities have grown at high rates, as the spillage of population continues, especially with Sydney where land availability and affordability is such a great issue.
From The ABS website, at the time of the last census, they recorded 21,507, 717 persons living in Australia, which was an increase of 8.4% nationally on the 2006 Census
Some of this population must be moving into Queensland, as we note the average growth in the 5 main capital cities has been 8.4% over 5 years, and yet Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast have enjoyed over 10% growth, where Sydney and it neighbouring areas of Central Coast, Newcastle and Wollongong have grown in the 6% and 4% range, which is well below the average. (See Figure 2)
Outside of these major population areas described above, we are seeing high growth especially in Far North Queensland, normally driven by the change of lifestyle combined with the tourism factors. The table below shows every city with a population over 40,000 at the last census, with some liberty taken in combining adjoining areas (eg Albury & Wodonga). (See Figure 3)
Naturally with population growth (and increased tourism over the long term) comes the need for food, QSR’s and other services to be provided.
The attractiveness of towns for high QSR growth is probabaly a factor of not only the growth in pure numbers, but also the reason for people being there. Many of the inland cities actually have relatively low socio economic numbers, where the coastal areas can be quite high, mainly due to the cost of the real estate.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics provides this information for free on their website www.abs.gov.au . When you log on to this site, look on the left hand side for Census Data, and you are then able to use the ABS product called Quikstats. Their numbers may not appear exactly the same as ours, as we have tried to measure the exact same area in each case when comparing population data, where as some boundaries may have moved from one census to the next. Have a go and look up any area of interest – You cannot break it, and it is very user friendly!
Summary
It is always good to know what is happening to an area, so you can make an educated decision, not just your wet finger in the air, otherwise known as a SWAG (Scientific Wild Arse Guess)!
