CANADA’S HOTEL OCCUPANCY REACHED THREE-YEAR HIGH IN AUGUST ACCORDING TO NEW DATA FROM STR
Canada’s hospitality sector reached a three-year high in August 2022 according to the latest data from global consultancy firm STR.
The company, which provides premium data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights for the global hospitality industry, monitored Canada’s monthly hotel performance for August 2022 and concluded that it reached its highest level for any month since August 2019.
In August 2022, Canada’s hotels recorded an occupancy of 76.4%, an average daily rate (ADR) of $153.54 (€156.63) (up 14.6%) while revenue per available room (RevPAR) reached US$117.59 (up 11.2%). This is the result of a survey done by consulting cabinet STR.
Compared with July, each of the three key performance metrics showed weakened comparisons with 2019. When adjusted for inflation, ADR was up 2.7% against the pre-pandemic comparable. “August is typically the seasonal peak for key performance indicators in Canada,” said Laura Baxter, CoStar Group’s director of hospitality analytics for Canada. CoStar Group is the parent company of STR.
“This year, however, August performance was on par with July in absolute terms but slightly lower when looking at the recovery index to 2019,” Baxter said. “No one segment is responsible for this decline, with the pullback taking place across the board, both in transient and group as well as during the weekday and weekend. The weekday rate index, however, bucked the trend and showed a marginal improvement month over month as hoteliers were able to push rates on Monday nights due to strong leisure demand.”
Prince Edward Island and Vancouver showing the highest occupancy
Among Canada’s provinces and territories, Prince Edward Island recorded the highest August occupancy level (94.0%), which was 0.2% below the pre-pandemic comparable.
Along the major markets, Vancouver saw the highest occupancy (85.7%), which was a 5.1% decrease from 2019.
The lowest occupancy among provinces was reported in Saskatchewan (62.2%), up 3.0% against 2019. At the market-level, the lowest occupancy was reported in Edmonton (+9.6% to 60.6%).
“Looking ahead, group and corporate demand will play a more prominent role in recovery for reasons beyond the typical seasonal shift away from transient leisure as summer ends,” Baxter said.
“The economic outlook has dimmed while soaring inflation and rising interest rates continue to put downward pressure on discretionary spending from the transient leisure segment. And with more group and corporate and less transient leisure demand in the business mix, ADR growth will decelerate. But it is important to remember that group and corporate ADR have also rebounded considerably with both ahead of the 2019 benchmark. Further recovery in hotel demand from international source markets should take place following the elimination of all COVID-19 entry restrictions on 1 October.”
