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Rottnest Island accommodation booking website fails again leaving huge queues

Will Yeoman and Natalie RichardsThe West Australian
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The Basin, Rottnest.
Camera IconThe Basin, Rottnest. Credit: Mogens Johansen/The West Australian

Holidaymakers hoping to spend this year’s Christmas on Rottnest Island received a rude shock this morning after the island’s website experienced a technical issue, resulting in a queue running into the thousands.

Desperate travellers were forced to sit in lengthy queues on the website this morning as they scrambled to snag one of the sought after accommodation venues for the busiest time of the year.

Frustrated traveller Andrew Pollard took to Twitter to vent about the issues.

“Spectacular #fail with @RottnestIsland booking system. Queue is paused due to high demand. It’s the 21st century so surely you would be prepared for this?” he said.

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A spokesperson from Rottnest Island Authority confirmed there was a “small issue at the entry point” resulting in a 30-minute outage on this first morning of the bookings going live, causing the long queues.

The problem was quickly fixed and the queue, which at 9.10am this morning was at 2812 people, was by 10am down to just 30 people.

The queue greeting visitors to the website at 9.10am.
Camera IconThe queue greeting visitors to the website at 9.10am. Credit: PerthNow

The spokesperson added that there was always a high demand for Christmas accommodation on the island, and this year is no exception.

The Rottnest Island website has a long history of crashing during high demand periods.

In 2019, major technical issues resulted in several outages, leaving visitors queueing for hours.

“I’ve spent more than an hour and a half trying to book for a holiday 18 months away!” fumed one traveller at the time.

Intermittent restrictions on interstate travel and the inability to travel overseas have however resulted in statewide shortages in holiday accommodation.

In Broome local businesses are reporting extremely high levels of bookings.

Seashells Broome hotel general manager Deb Williams said they were fully booked.

“The last couple of months have been way busier than usual and we’re very full from now all the way to the end of school holidays in October,” she said.

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