Canada’s hotel industry reported its highest monthly performance levels since September 2020, according to STR‘s June 2021 data.
Even with improvement from previous months, the country’s performance levels remained well below the pre-pandemic comparable of June 2019:
- Occupancy: 36.5% (-50.5%)
- Average daily rate (ADR): CAD125.05 (-31.2%)
- Revenue per available room (RevPAR): CAD45.67 (-66.0%)
“Now that vaccination efforts are well underway and paying off with declining case counts, restrictions are easing and the Canadian tourism economy is reopening,” said Laura Baxter, CoStar Group’s director of hospitality analytics for Canada. CoStar Group is the parent company of STR.
“There was an immediate positive impact on the key performance metrics as many provinces worked through their reopening plans in June, and that momentum continued into the opening weeks of July. Like other parts of the world, improvement has been driven by transient demand, while group business is almost nonexistent. Group recovery is expected to improve very slowly, and in the short to medium term, some pent-up group demand from postponed weddings and other celebrations is expected to push weekend numbers. Other than that, group recovery is expected to lag, especially during the weekdays in the fall when conferences and conventions would have taken place in a normal year.”
“Transient leisure demand will continue to lead recovery through July and August. With the U.S. land border reopening in early August, fully vaccinated, American leisure travelers will push occupancy and room rate recovery. We expect this added demand to benefit resort destinations, small towns and road-side hotels over the summer. The reopening of the border and relaxed quarantine measures will also allow for pent-up transient corporate travel to resume to an extent this fall, which will give urban hotels a much-needed boost.”
Among the provinces and territories, Prince Edward Island recorded the lowest June occupancy level (16.2%), which was 77.8% below the pre-pandemic comparable.
Among the major markets, Montreal saw the lowest occupancy (27.2%), which was a 67.2% decline from 2019.
The highest occupancy among provinces was reported in British Columbia (46.1%), down 42.2% against 2019. At the market level, the highest occupancy was reported in Vancouver (44.8%), which decreased 50.2% from 2019.
