The City of Holdfast Bay commissions market research among businesses across the council area. The feedback is extremely valuable and enables Council to assess the needs of the business community. This local business survey is conducted every 2 years, with the last one in the fourth quarter of 2025.

The objective of the survey is to measure business confidence across the city to determine how Council can support better business conditions. The survey gauges;

• Current and forecast levels of business confidence
• Satisfaction and usefulness of assistance mechanisms
• Rating Council experience and various strategies employed by Council to support businesses
• Event information (timing and type)
• Business knowledge on latest trends
• How well-equipped businesses are to accommodate tourism

In November 2025, the sixth biennial Business Confidence survey was completed in Holdfast Bay with a representative sample of 306 businesses responding.

Overall, business confidence has softened compared with 2023. Cost pressures remain a dominant theme. Businesses widely report increases in wages, non-wage labour costs, rent and overheads such as electricity, with many expecting these pressures to intensify further in the next quarter. At the same time, a significant proportion of businesses report declines in sales, profitability and general business conditions.

The algal bloom has had a material and uneven impact across the business community. While around 60% of businesses report no direct impact, approximately 40% – particularly those reliant on tourism, hospitality and coastal visitation – describe substantial declines in foot traffic and revenue.

Despite these challenges, engagement with Council has increased, with around one quarter of businesses reporting contact with Council in the past 12 months.

Businesses see events and activations as a key lever for foot traffic and vibrancy.

The 2025 survey also highlights emerging themes shaping the future business landscape. Awareness and use of artificial intelligence is relatively high, with nearly nine in ten businesses reporting some level of knowledge, and almost half indicating they are likely to adopt or increase AI use over the next one to three years – though uptake is uneven across sectors and locations.

The findings point to a business community under sustained pressure, navigating rising costs, environmental disruption and infrastructure change.

In October 2023, the fifth biennial Business Confidence survey was completed in Holdfast Bay with a representative sample of 303 businesses responding.

Business concerns shifted between 2021 and 2023 from workforce shortages to rising business costs. However, finding staff remained difficult for many sectors. Only a small number of businesses in 2023 had dealt with the Council, and their experience and levels of satisfaction were mostly better or equal. The trend was good.

Most notably, experience with delivering food safety /health inspections, as well as interaction with Business Development, has improved. Business valued assistance around government grants and/or subsidies the highest.

The future vision received good feedback, and it was clear that business largely considered the role for Council to be as collaborator, service provider and coordinator. There was a relatively low level of understanding of differential rates, and only two in ten businesses would use co-working spaces.