STR: Canada hotel RevPAR above $100 for three consecutive months

April 2023 (year-over-year percentage change)

• Occupancy: 62.7 per cent (+9.3 per cent)

• Average daily rate (ADR): CAD178.80 (+14.8 per cent)

• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): CAD112.16 (+25.5 per cent)

“Canada’s hotel room rates continued to be the main driver of top-line recovery,” says Laura Baxter, CoStar Group’s director of hospitality analytics for Canada. CoStar Group is the parent company of STR.

“In April, inflation was stronger than the Bank of Canada expected, at 4.4 per cent. But even when comparing the April results to 2019 dollars, real rates increased 2.3 per cent. Growth has been ongoing since July 2022, apart from a slight 1 per cent contraction in January 2023. Although transient rates continue to show the strongest lift over 2019, efforts to drive rates in other segments have become increasingly noticeable in the data, for example, group rates were 14 per cent above April 2019 levels while weekday rates, a proxy for corporate rates, were up 15 per cent.

“Demand has been bolstered by limited-service hotels, which have achieved levels ahead of the 2019 benchmark, while full-service demand has been below that threshold. Strength in limited-service hotels has been ongoing since midway through last year, but the cost of living and belt-tightening will likely add an element of trading down that is amplifying the trend.”

Among the provinces and territories, Manitoba recorded the highest April occupancy level (74.5 per cent), which was up 28.5 per cent year over year.

Among the major markets, Vancouver reported the highest occupancy level (79.8 per cent), which was 5.4 per cent above 2022.

Prince Edward Island (40.2 per cent) saw the lowest occupancy among provinces, down 5.7 per cent year over year. At the market level, the lowest occupancy was reported in Calgary (58.5 per cent), which was 1.7 per cent above the 2022 comparable.

Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Toronto also enjoyed added demand from hosting the first-round of the NHL hockey playoff games in the latter half of the month.