"While Victoria was up, both Western Australia and Queensland fell as these states continued to feel the effects from the downturn in the resources sector," said Amanda Clark from the ABS.
"Victoria had an increase in occupancy rates for all four quarters; for the June quarter 2014 the occupancy rate was 67.8 per cent, 1.5 per cent higher than the same time last year.
"But otherwise, in the 2013-14 financial year, occupancy rates across Australia fell," said Clark.
In June quarter 2014, the seasonally adjusted occupancy rate for Australia was 64.2 per cent, a decrease of 0.6 percentage points from June quarter 2013. Over this time seasonally adjusted takings also fell by 0.5 per cent to $2,258.1 million.
After annual decreases in occupancy rates since the December quarter 2012, South Australia improved in 2014, with an increase in both the March quarter 2014 (up 1.1 percentage points to 61.3 per cent) and the June quarter 2014 (up 2 percentage points to 61.8 per cent).
Key drivers to the national decrease in occupancy were the continued decreases in the big mining states - Western Australia and Queensland. Seasonally adjusted takings and occupancy rates for both states decreased for all quarters.
In the June quarter 2014, the seasonally adjusted occupancy rate for Western Australia was 62.7 per cent, a decrease of 2.7 percentage points. Over this time seasonally adjusted accommodation takings decreased by 7.1 per cent to $233.2 million.
Similarly, the seasonally adjusted occupancy rate for Queensland was 61.6 per cent, a decrease of 2.1 percentage points. Seasonally adjusted accommodation takings decreased by 4.3 per cent to $540.6 million.
From 1 July 2013 the collection frequency of the survey moved from quarterly to annually. The ABS received funding from the Australian Trade Commission to undertake the annual collection for the 2013-14 reference year. Both the ABS and the Australian Trade Commission are currently working in collaboration with industry partners to secure future funding for the collection.