The novelty of being the only person on a flight from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast quickly turned into a nightmare for 61-year-old Maureen Ellis when she discovered she would have to self isolate for two weeks at her own expense.

The novelty of being the only person on a flight from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast quickly turned into a nightmare for 61-year-old Maureen Ellis.

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When she stepped off her Jetstar flight on Monday after a 10-day trip to Melbourne, she was greeted by an entourage of police, media and Queensland Health officials that left her feeling 'overwhelmed' and 'like a prisoner'.

Queensland has turned away hundreds of Victorian travellers since its border restrictions came into force on Friday and Jetstar has advised no more flights would be coming in from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast.

The rules are clear: anyone who has travelled from Victoria and enters Queensland — including Queenslanders — have to quarantine at their own expense for 14 days.

Ms Ellis said she called Queensland Health on the Sunday before her hastily-booked flight and she understood she could go home to self isolate for two weeks.

'I wanted to be sure everything was OK to come back in,' she said.

She said the reception she received when she disembarked had been a shock.

Sunshine Coast police superintendent Craig Hawkins held a press conference at the airport prior to Ms Ellis's plane landing.

He said police and Queensland Health officials would ensure all the passengers would be forced into 14-day quarantine at a hotel at their own expense.

The one passenger stepped off the plane — Ms Ellis.

Police greet the lone passenger

Ms Ellis said she was stunned when she the size of the entourage gathered to greet her and thought, 'Oh my God, are you serious?'

'I was overwhelmed, I was overcome. My emotions just went whack. I felt like a prisoner, actually,' Ms Ellis said.

Planning to call her sister-in-law to pick her up to take her on the short journey to her home, just five minutes away, Ms Ellis found herself being escorted by police to a van with people wearing hospital masks and then transported to a hotel in the suburb of Kawana.

Ms Ellis tried to argue that she should be allowed to go home as she lived in a granny flat and would be isolated anyway, but was told this would not be possible.

'They stuck me in a hotel room at my own expense and they haven't even tested me,' she said.

She was worried she might only be tested in a few days' time and then would have to stay in the hotel longer and face an even bigger hotel bill.

Two police officers are stationed in a corridor outside her hotel room for 24 hours a day and she is not allowed to leave the room except for a short stroll down the corridor to a balcony for a smoke.

$200 a day for quarantine

The hotel will cost her $200 a day, including food, which she cannot afford because she is on WorkCover.

Ms Ellis said she had travelled to Melbourne 10 days earlier to for an 'important appointment' and to catch up with family.

As the pandemic began to spread throughout Melbourne, Ms Ellis thought she had better try to get home and found a Jetstar flight online and 'just booked it' using her vouchers from a cancelled trip to Bali.

Ms Ellis said her decision had been pretty 'rush, rush', but she had no idea she would end up 'isolated under police guard' at her own expense.

Ms Ellis has spent the past few days in the hotel 'watching TV, listening to music — bored basically'.

There were four other passengers who arrived on the next Jetstar flight from Melbourne into the Sunshine Coast on Tuesday who are also in quarantine in the hotel.

Leading Australian hotel investment and development company, Pro-Invest, will open a Holiday Inn Express & Suites Sunshine Coast in Maroochydore Town Centre in 2020, following the purchase of a prime site in Maroochydore and lodgement of a development application with Economic Development Queensland for a new select-service upper midscale hotel.

The 167- room hotel will be located in the heart of the new Maroochydore CBD, which is set to become the commercial and administrative hub of the rapidly growing Sunshine Coast region.

Pro-Invest has a Master Development Agreement with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG^®) to develop and operate the Holiday Inn Express brand in Australia and New Zealand under franchise. Holiday Inn Express & Suites Sunshine Coast will be Proinvest’s sixth in the pipeline for the brand, adding to the four already open in Adelaide, Sydney Macquarie Park, Newcastle, and Proinvest’s other Queensland property, Holiday Inn Express Brisbane Central, which opened in 2017.

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The nine-storey Holiday Inn Express & Suites is planned to have 167 rooms, a swimming pool, bar and dining venue, conference and function facilities, and ground-level retail.

The new Maroochydore CBD is set to be a vibrant hub of commerce, technology, innovation, entertainment and inner-city living, and will – according to Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk - “cement the Sunshine Coast as one of Queensland’s, and Australia’s, best-performing regional economies.”

Announcing the project, Ronald Barrott, CEO of Pro-Invest, said the Sunshine Coast was going through an unprecedented economic transformation, and the acquisition of the site was a reflection of the group’s ability to target and deliver high-quality hotel development opportunities:

“This will be one of the region’s most significant tourism infrastructure projects in decades. While there have been some hotel developments proposed for the Sunshine Coast in recent years, they are still a long way from being realised. In contrast, Pro-Invest has the unique advantage in the Australian hotel landscape of being able to deliver projects from inception to opening.”

“Investment for the Sunshine Coast hotel will come from Pro-invest’s Australian Hospitality Opportunity Fund II, with Pro-Invest responsible for the construction, launch and management of the hotel. This has enabled us to be agile and deliver hotels in relatively short time-spans. We are confident that with the support of the Queensland Government and Sunshine Coast Council we will be able to expedite the development to have the hotel open to coincide with the official launch of the new Sunshine Coast Airport runway at the end of 2020.”

“The Sunshine Coast is transitioning from a largely leisure-based market to a more diversified market with major growth in businesses establishing themselves in the region to take advantage of large-scale infrastructure projects such as the expanded airport, the Maroochydore city centre and the underwater submarine cable, which will help establish the region as hi-tech hub in Queensland.”

“The Holiday Inn Express brand is ideal for the destination as its upper-midscale positioning will make it highly-suitable for targeting business, meetings and leisure travellers.”

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Abhijay Sandilya, Senior Director Development – Australasia, IHG, commented: “We congratulate Proinvest for the signing of Holiday Inn Express & Suites Sunshine Coast, and for the huge success they are having with the rollout of the Holiday Inn Express in Australasia. IHG and Proinvest have a great relationship, and it’s fantastic to see how they are bringing a world-leading evolution of this select service brand to the market.”