Canada hotel room rates driven by groups in February

February 2024 (percentage change from 2023):

• Occupancy: 58.0 per cent (-1.6 per cent)

• Average daily rate (ADR): CAD181.55 (+3.8 per cent)

• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): CAD105.37 (+2.2 per cent)

Group ADR growth (+7.9 per cent) was the strongest among the segments.

“Both transient and group occupancy declined, down 2.4 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively, contributing to the third consecutive decline in Canada’s monthly hotel occupancy,” says Laura Baxter, CoStar Group’s director of hospitality analytics for Canada.

“A greater decline in the metric occurred over the weekends as opposed to weekdays, suggesting that leisure travelers continue to reel in discretionary spending. Meanwhile, weekday occupancy was only marginally below last February, indicating that business travel is not pulling back to the same degree.”

Among the provinces and territories, Manitoba recorded the highest February 2024 occupancy level (69.8 per cent), which was 0.5 per cent below 2023. Among the major markets, Vancouver saw the highest occupancy (73.5 per cent), down 1.4 per cent over February 2023. The lowest occupancy among provinces was reported in Prince Edward Island (38.6 per cent), down 38.1 per cent against 2023. The decline was due to comparison to the province’s Canada Winter Games host period last year. At the market level, the lowest occupancy was reported in Edmonton (+4.6 per cent to 53.3 per cent).

“Supply pressure continues to be minimal for most markets,” says Baxter. “New openings across Canada in 2024 are expected to be down roughly 30 per cent compared to the 10-year average.”