Expert short-term rental marketing to grow your bookings and nightly rate in Great Ocean Road, VIC, Australia.
Sixteen services, one team. Everything below is built in-house and scoped to your property and market. Most owners start with the 12-Step System.
Every engagement is quoted to your portfolio. These are the ready-made scopes owners pick most — Summer Promo pricing shown, discount already applied. A clear proposal within 48 hours.
The work is public. Selected engagements and what changed — and reviews from the owners and managers behind them.
* Market averages. Properties marketed by Cavmir typically exceed these figures by 25–45%. Data sourced from AirDNA, STR market reports, and Cavmir internal analytics.
The Great Ocean Road is a single famous name covering three separate local government areas, and that is the first thing an owner here needs to understand. Surf Coast Shire runs Torquay through to Lorne, Colac Otway Shire covers Apollo Bay and the Otways, and Corangamite Shire takes in Port Campbell and the Twelve Apostles — three councils with their own planning positions, which means a guide written about the region is not guidance about your address. Above all three sits Victoria's Short Stay Levy Act 2024: a levy of 7.5% of the total accommodation fee on stays of fewer than twenty-eight consecutive days, applying to bookings made on or after 1 January 2025, collected by platforms on platform bookings and by you on direct ones. Victoria has no statewide night cap — the levy is the instrument — but the same Act allows an owners corporation to ban short stays by special resolution of seventy-five per cent of lot owners, except where the lot is the owner's or occupier's principal residence. What all of that governs is one of the world's great coastal drives, built between 1919 and 1932 by returned servicemen and dedicated to the dead of the First World War.
The Great Ocean Road runs three different markets strung along two hundred and forty kilometres of coast, and the biggest single mistake operators make is pretending they are one. The Surf Coast end — Torquay, Jan Juc, Anglesea and Aireys Inlet — is Melbourne's weekend surf belt, ninety minutes from the city, with Bells Beach, a serious surf industry and the strongest year-round demand in the region. Lorne and Apollo Bay are the classic holiday towns: beaches, the Otway rainforest behind, restaurants and a January peak that is close to absolute. Port Campbell and the western end are the Twelve Apostles market, dominated by international and interstate touring traffic that historically drove through in a day and increasingly stays a night. Behind all of it sit the Otways — waterfalls, tall forest, the Great Ocean Walk and a genuinely different product that works when the coast is cold. Blended nightly rates run near A$342 with occupancy around 50%, which reflects a market with an outstanding summer, a real shoulder that few people sell, and a winter that most of the region simply concedes.
Nearby Markets: Mornington Peninsula | Barossa Valley | Adelaide
A few of the visual fingerprints we lean into when we shoot, brand and market a Great Ocean Road property — courtesy of the open Wikimedia Commons archive.
Cavmir wins on the Great Ocean Road because the region is famous and its listings are generic. Everyone photographs the Twelve Apostles; almost nobody tells a guest how long the drive from Melbourne actually takes with stops, which section of the road they are on, where the good beaches are for children, or what happens when it rains for three days in the Otways. We write that. We are precise about which of the three markets a property sits in, and we sell it as that rather than as the whole coast. We build the shoulder and the winter with the things that genuinely work here — the Otway waterfalls after rain, storm watching from a warm house, the Great Ocean Walk, koalas at Kennett River, the surf that does not stop in June — and we price January and Easter early rather than reactively. We handle the levy properly: built into the rate rather than sprung at checkout, and remitted correctly on direct bookings. We shoot the coast honestly, including the weather, because a Bass Strait winter is part of the product rather than an embarrassment. And for the region's small hotels, motels and guesthouses we build direct-booking websites and repeat-guest programs. We help position and market your property. We never manage it or touch your keys.
The Great Ocean Road is a war memorial that happens to be a road. Between 1919 and 1932 around three thousand returned servicemen cut it out of the cliffs west of Geelong, largely by hand with picks, shovels and explosives, working in conditions that were dangerous and often miserable, and it was dedicated to those killed in the First World War — which makes it, by length, the largest war memorial in the world. The Memorial Arch at Eastern View marks the point. Before that it was Gadubanud, Wadawurrung and Gulidjan country, and the coast was known to European Victoria mainly as a shipwreck graveyard: the stretch west of Cape Otway is called the Shipwreck Coast for good reason, and the Loch Ard went down there in 1878 with two survivors out of fifty-four aboard.
The road turned an isolated coast into a destination. Lorne became a Victorian holiday town, Apollo Bay a fishing port that discovered tourism, and Torquay a surf town after the Bells Beach break was found in the 1950s — the Rip Curl Pro has run there since 1961 and both Rip Curl and Quiksilver were founded in the town, making it the centre of the Australian surf industry. The Twelve Apostles were not always called that, and there were never twelve; stacks have been eroding and collapsing for millennia, most recently and publicly in 2005, which is a useful reminder that the coastline in the photographs is a temporary arrangement. Tourism grew enormously through the 2000s and 2010s, dominated by day-trip coaches out of Melbourne, and the region's long-running commercial challenge has been converting drive-through traffic into overnight stays. The short-stay market grew alongside it across three councils, and then in January 2025 Victoria introduced a 7.5% short stay levy and gave owners corporations the power to ban short stays entirely — the largest change to the region's rental economics in a generation.
The Great Ocean Road rate map runs west from Melbourne and the market changes character as it goes. Torquay, Jan Juc and Anglesea carry the strongest year-round demand — ninety minutes from the city, a real town, surf that runs all year and a weekend market that does not depend on summer. Aireys Inlet and Fairhaven price on the lighthouse, quieter beaches and a slightly more exclusive feel. Lorne is the classic holiday town and the January rate leader, with the Otways behind it and a main street that fills completely for a month. Apollo Bay trades slightly lower with a working harbour, the Great Ocean Walk and rainforest access, and it is the best base for the western drive. Port Campbell and the Shipwreck Coast serve the Twelve Apostles market with a smaller, more touring-dependent stock, and are the most seasonal of the lot. Blended, the region runs near A$342 a night at about 50% occupancy — strong rates on a short season, which is the signature of a market that has never seriously sold winter.
This coast has a steep Melbourne-driven curve with a long tail nobody uses. January is the peak and it is close to absolute in Lorne and Apollo Bay, with houses letting for weeks and the towns full. Easter is the second block. Summer school holidays either side are strong. Autumn is genuinely excellent — settled weather, warm water for surfing, empty beaches — and it is the most underpriced stretch of the year. Winter, June to August, is cold, wet and wild, with Bass Strait storms hitting the coast and rain feeding the Otway waterfalls; it is the season most operators concede entirely and the one with the least competition. Spring builds from September with wildflowers and whale sightings off the western end.
The Great Ocean Road is a high-regulation market for two reasons: a state levy and three separate councils. Start with the state. Victoria's Short Stay Levy Act 2024 imposes a levy of 7.5% of the total accommodation fee on stays of fewer than twenty-eight consecutive days, applying to bookings made on or after 1 January 2025. Platforms collect and remit it for platform bookings; the operator is responsible for direct bookings, which trips up owners moving guests off-platform to save commission. Victoria has no statewide night cap. The second state change matters most to unit and apartment owners: the same Act amended the Owners Corporations Act 2006 so an owners corporation can prohibit short stays by special resolution requiring seventy-five per cent of lot owners, though it cannot apply that rule to a lot that is the owner's or occupier's principal place of residence. Then the local layer, which is where this region is genuinely different from a single-council market. The road runs through Surf Coast Shire, Colac Otway Shire and Corangamite Shire, and each sets its own planning policy, local laws and enforcement priorities. A property at Torquay and one at Port Campbell are governed by different councils with different positions, so regional guidance is close to useless — go to the council that covers your address. Beyond that, much of the coast is bushfire-prone with planning and construction obligations attached, coastal erosion affects specific stretches, and Victorian pool and spa registration and barrier rules are enforced.
Say which part of the coast you are on and stop selling the whole road. Torquay, Lorne and Port Campbell are three different holidays and a listing that says Great Ocean Road is competing against two hundred and forty kilometres of coastline. Give the real drive time from Melbourne with stops, because guests consistently underestimate it and arrive frustrated. Build a winter product around the things that genuinely work here: Otway waterfalls running hard after rain, storm watching from a warm house with a fire, the Great Ocean Walk, whales at the western end from June, and surf that does not care about the season. Price the levy into your rate rather than adding it at checkout, and set up the remittance process before you push direct bookings. Price January and the Christmas block from the previous winter. If you are at the western end, chase the overnight conversion — sunrise at the Apostles with nobody there is a genuinely better product than the coach experience and almost nobody sells it. And build the email list, because summer families here return for decades.
The 7.5% levy is a direct margin hit that lands hardest on short, low-rate bookings. Three councils mean three sets of rules and no single answer for the region. Bushfire risk is severe and historically proven, insurance is expensive in bushfire-prone areas, and the fire season overlaps exactly with the peak. The season is extreme — January carries an outsized share of revenue and winter is largely conceded. Day-trip traffic to the Twelve Apostles is enormous but converts poorly to overnight stays. Owners corporation ban powers are a new existential risk for unit investors. Coastal erosion affects specific stretches. And the drive from Melbourne is longer than guests expect, which generates avoidable friction on arrival day.
This coast is bushfire country and the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, which devastated Lorne and Aireys Inlet, are part of the region's memory and its underwriting. Bushfire-prone mapping covers a great deal of the coast and the Otways, premiums reflect it, and some insurers restrict cover. Coastal erosion affects specific stretches and is worth checking before purchase. Bass Strait storms bring wind and water damage in winter. You need short-stay or commercial landlord cover with public liability, loss of rent and accidental damage by guests. Schoolies and end-of-year group bookings are a genuine claims category on the Surf Coast. Pools and spas need registration and compliant barriers, and a written bushfire survival plan should be part of your guest information as well as your risk position.
Victoria's 7.5% short stay levy sits on top of the ordinary Australian stack rather than replacing any of it. Beyond the levy you carry GST once turnover passes the registration threshold, income tax on net rental profit, Victorian land tax above the threshold on aggregated site value with absentee owner surcharges, and capital gains tax on disposal with the main residence exemption affected by income-producing use. Victoria's land tax settings have been unusually active in recent years and holding two or three properties along this coast can push an owner over thresholds unexpectedly. Because so many Great Ocean Road houses are used privately over summer, the private-use apportionment also needs setting correctly in the first year rather than reconstructing later. Take Victorian-specific advice.
Australian lenders discount short-stay income when assessing serviceability, and on this coast they will also look at bushfire-prone status, which narrows the panel and raises the insurance cost that feeds back into affordability. Expect twenty per cent or more deposit. Two further questions are now reasonable for a lender to ask in Victoria: whether the 7.5% levy is in your projections, and whether an owners corporation could vote to ban short stays if the property is strata-titled. Prices at the Torquay and Lorne end have risen substantially on Melbourne demand, compressing yields, which makes the shoulder-season strategy a financing argument as well as a marketing one.
Victoria has chosen a levy rather than a cap and there is no sign of that reversing, so plan for a 7.5% charge as a permanent feature and possibly a growing one. The practical effect is to push the coast toward higher-value, longer stays and away from cheap two-night bookings, because the levy hurts a low rate proportionally more. The owners corporation power will thin strata short-stay supply over time as more buildings exercise it, which helps freehold-house operators. Locally, the three councils will keep diverging rather than converging, and Surf Coast Shire in particular has the housing pressure and the population growth that produce local rules. On demand, the fundamentals are strong but the shape needs work: the region's long-standing problem is day-trip traffic that drives past instead of staying, and the biggest available prize remains converting Twelve Apostles visitors into an overnight at the western end. Climate is the honest long-run variable — bushfire risk and coastal erosion both point the wrong way — and operators who prepare properly and communicate honestly will handle it far better than those who do not.
We love the Great Ocean Road because it earns its reputation and then keeps going after the postcard stops. Everyone comes for the Twelve Apostles, which are genuinely extraordinary and also entirely misnamed — there were never twelve and there are fewer now than there were twenty years ago, because the coastline is still being dismantled by the Southern Ocean in real time. What most visitors miss is everything between: Bells Beach with a serious swell running, koalas actually in the trees at Kennett River, the Otways behind Apollo Bay where the forest is tall enough and wet enough to feel like a different country, and waterfalls that are at their absolute best in the months everyone stays away. And the road itself is a war memorial, hand-cut by returned soldiers over thirteen years, which is not a detail most people know while they are driving it. For marketers, this coast is a conversion problem rather than an awareness problem: millions of people drive it and comparatively few of them stay. The operator who solves the overnight is not competing for attention, only for the decision.
A great property in Great Ocean Road doesn't just want a listing — it wants a point of view, an audience, and a brand the city itself would recognise.
The picks we send Great Ocean Road guests — deliberately weighted away from the coach-tour hours, because this coast is a different place at seven in the morning.
The coaches arrive from Melbourne in the middle of the day and the viewing platforms are shoulder to shoulder. At sunrise there is almost nobody there and the light is far better. It is the strongest single argument for staying overnight at the western end rather than driving through.
A working fishing harbour with the Otways behind it, which means the seafood is local and the setting does the rest. Book ahead in January and walk in for most of the rest of the year — and go early enough to watch the boats come back in.
You do not have to surf to sit above Bells and watch a swell come through. Rip Curl and Quiksilver both started in Torquay and the Rip Curl Pro has run at Bells since 1961, which makes this stretch of water the centre of Australian surfing rather than merely a nice beach.
Erskine Falls behind Lorne, Hopetoun and Triplet Falls in the Otways, all running hardest in the wettest months when the coast has given up on visitors. Tall wet forest, tree ferns, nobody on the tracks — a genuinely better experience than the same walk in January.
A hundred-odd kilometres from Apollo Bay to the Twelve Apostles, walkable in sections as day walks with a car shuffle. It shows guests a coastline the road never reaches, and it is the easiest way to turn a two-night stay into a four-night one.
Great Ocean Road enquiries repeat four things: how long is the drive from Melbourne really, where do we actually see koalas, what is there to do if it rains, and how far are we from the Apostles. Answer all four honestly and arrival day gets a lot smoother.
A few composite engagements drawn from how Cavmir typically works in this market. The details are illustrative and consistent with the Great Ocean Road, not pulled from a single named client.
A family house filled January and Easter, conceded winter entirely, and had quietly absorbed the 7.5% levy out of margin rather than repricing — so the same bookings were producing less than they had two years earlier.
Cavmir repriced the property so the levy was carried rather than absorbed, built a winter proposition around the Otway waterfalls, storm watching and a fire with wood provided, and reshot the house in June as well as January.
Winter and shoulder weekends began booking from an audience the property had never spoken to, the levy stopped eroding the owner's return, and the year's revenue was no longer dependent on a single month going well.
A motel at the western end relied on last-minute touring traffic, paid platform commission on almost every booking, and had no way to persuade day-trippers to stay a night rather than drive back to Melbourne after the Apostles.
Cavmir built a direct-booking website around the sunrise proposition — the Apostles before the coaches arrive — packaged an early breakfast and a walking guide, and targeted international and interstate touring audiences at the point they were planning the drive.
Direct bookings began carrying a real share of the shoulder months, the sunrise angle converted drive-through traffic into overnight stays, and the motel had a proposition no competitor on that stretch of coast was making.
A cottage near Bells Beach was marketed as generic Great Ocean Road accommodation, competed against properties two hours further west that offered a completely different holiday, and never mentioned the surf or the Easter contest.
Cavmir repositioned it as a Surf Coast property rather than a Great Ocean Road one — the break, the walk, board storage, an outdoor shower, the Easter contest dates in the rate calendar — and targeted Melbourne weekend surfers year-round.
The cottage stopped competing across two hundred and forty kilometres of coastline and started competing in its own ninety-minute-from-Melbourne market, with weekend occupancy rising through the months the western end concedes entirely.
Demand in Great Ocean Road peaks around January and December and runs quietest around June through August. Here is how the year actually books — and what to do about each stretch of the calendar.
January is close to absolute in Lorne and Apollo Bay — the towns fill, houses let for weeks at a time, and rates reach the levels that carry the annual return. Christmas and New Year produce the highest single-night rates for houses that sleep a group, usually booked twelve months ahead. Easter is the second block, and on the Surf Coast it coincides with the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, which fills Torquay, Jan Juc and Anglesea on published dates.
Autumn, March through May, is the most underpriced stretch on this coast: settled weather, water still warm enough to surf, empty beaches and the Otways at their most walkable. Spring builds from September with wildflowers, and southern right whales appear off the western end from about June. Both shoulders reward operators who market them deliberately, because the region's default assumption is that the year ends at Easter.
Winter, June to August, is cold, wet and wild, with Bass Strait storms hitting the coast and rain feeding the Otway waterfalls. Most of the region concedes the season entirely, which is precisely why it is available: storm watching from a warm house, waterfalls running hard, tall wet forest, whales at the western end and surf that does not stop. The properties that trade through winter here face almost no competition at all.
January and the Christmas block book from the previous winter and returning families frequently rebook before checkout, so summer rates need to be live by mid-year. Easter and the Bells Beach contest fill two to four months out. Surf Coast weekends book two to four weeks ahead. Touring demand at the western end is genuinely last-minute, often inside a few days, which rewards an open calendar and fast enquiry response.
Multi-week stays in January in the holiday towns, three to four nights over Easter and long weekends, two nights on ordinary Surf Coast weekends, and one to two nights for touring guests at the western end. Because the 7.5% levy applies only to stays under 28 consecutive days, genuinely long summer lets are a structurally different product worth pricing deliberately.
The winning Great Ocean Road property knows which of the three markets it is in and sells that. On the Surf Coast that means board storage, an outdoor shower and a ninety-minute-from-Melbourne weekend proposition. In Lorne or Apollo Bay it means a house that sleeps a group with a fire for winter. At the western end it means being the reason someone stays overnight for sunrise at the Apostles instead of driving back.
Say which part of the coast you are on. Torquay, Lorne and Port Campbell are three different holidays across two hundred and forty kilometres governed by three different councils, and a listing that just says Great Ocean Road is competing against all of it. Give the honest drive time from Melbourne with stops, because guests consistently underestimate it. Build a winter product around what genuinely works here — Otway waterfalls after rain, storm watching from a warm house, the Great Ocean Walk, whales at the western end — and price Victoria's 7.5% levy into your rate rather than absorbing it out of margin.
January, overwhelmingly, and it is close to absolute in Lorne and Apollo Bay — the towns fill, houses let for weeks and rates carry the year. Christmas and New Year produce the highest single-night rates. Easter is the second block and coincides with the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach on the Surf Coast. Autumn, March to May, is excellent and the most underpriced stretch on the coast. Winter is cold, wet and largely conceded by the region, which is exactly why the waterfalls, the storms and the whales are available to whoever markets them.
It splits by market. January and the Christmas block fill from the previous winter, and returning families often rebook before they check out, so summer rates need to be live by mid-year. Easter and the Bells Beach contest fill two to four months out. Surf Coast weekends book two to four weeks ahead. Touring demand at the western end is genuinely last-minute, frequently inside a few days as people decide whether to drive back to Melbourne or stay — which makes an open calendar and fast enquiry response worth real money there.
Melbourne dominates, with Geelong at the eastern gateway, which makes the Surf Coast a genuine ninety-minute weekend market rather than a holiday-only one. The western end around Port Campbell depends far more on international and interstate touring traffic driving the road, historically in a single day. For advertising, Melbourne postcodes carry the Surf Coast and the summer holiday towns, while road-trip and touring audiences convert best for the Twelve Apostles end where the goal is an overnight rather than a drive-through.
Two layers. Victoria's Short Stay Levy Act 2024 imposes 7.5% of the total accommodation fee on stays under twenty-eight consecutive days, for bookings made on or after 1 January 2025 — platforms remit for platform bookings but you are responsible for direct ones. The same Act lets an owners corporation ban short stays by 75% special resolution, except for a lot that is the owner's or occupier's principal residence. Locally, the road runs through Surf Coast, Colac Otway and Corangamite Shires, each with its own planning position, so ask the council that covers your address.
Run your Airbnb, Vrbo, or website through Cavmir's free grader. It checks the things that decide whether guests book on the Great Ocean Road — photos, listing copy, page speed, local search — and shows you where bookings leak. Takes about a minute, and there's no sales call attached.
If the report says your booking engine is the weak link, that's fixable: a direct-booking website of your own means repeat guests stop paying platform fees to come back to you. That's the work Cavmir does — see Airbnb website design on the Great Ocean Road.
Talk to Cavmir today. We'll show you exactly what your Great Ocean Road property is leaving on the table — and how fast we can change that.
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