Tasmania edges ahead of Melbourne on higher occupancy (42% vs 30%), stronger RevPAR (£27 vs £15).
Head-to-head metrics
| Melbourne | Tasmania | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 30% | 42% |
| Median daily rate | £80 | £99 |
| Median RevPAR | £15 | £27 |
| Active listings | 15,424 | 5,396 |
| YoY occupancy | +8.6 pts | +14.1 pts |
| YoY daily rate | +1.3% | -1% |
| Regulation risk | — | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: Melbourne vs Tasmania
On the money side of this comparison — what a listing actually earns against the nights it has available — Tasmania finishes decisively ahead of Melbourne. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 82.7% higher in Tasmania: £27 against £15. Tasmania sells 12 more points of its calendar — 42% median occupancy against 30% in Melbourne. That is not a rounding difference, and it compounds over a hold period.
Tasmania takes both halves of the yield equation, which is less common than it sounds. It charges more per night — £99 against £80 — and still fills more of the year, 42% against 30%. A market that leads on price and utilisation at once is normally one where demand has outrun supply, rather than one where hosts are discounting to keep the calendar busy. RevPAR reflects the double advantage at £27 against £15.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Melbourne is not simply the weaker market of the two. Melbourne is the deeper market at 15,424 active listings against 5,396, which usually means better comparables going in and a wider buyer pool coming out. Melbourne sits at the cheaper end at £80 a night against £99, which lowers the bar for filling shoulder-season dates and usually tracks a lower purchase price too. If your model leans on that dimension, the ordering above can reasonably flip.
Neither Melbourne nor Tasmania currently has a verified short-term rental regulation record in our register, so the comparison above is a yield comparison only. Regulation is the single largest source of downside in this asset class — an unverified market is an unpriced risk, not an absent one.
The two calendars also behave differently. Melbourne peaks in July at 66.7% and bottoms in October at 47.1%; Tasmania runs from 52.2% in September down to 35.2% in February. Both swing by a similar amount across the year, so neither offers meaningfully steadier cash flow than the other.
Who each suits, then. Melbourne suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry. Tasmania answers to the same regulatory profile, so the split between them is operational rather than legal. It is also the momentum side of this pair. Every figure above comes from the same Inside Airbnb snapshot pipeline on both sides, filtered to listings with at least one booking in the last twelve months. Occupancy medians are drawn from 9,898 active Melbourne listings and 2,774 in Tasmania.
Frequently asked questions
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