Toronto barely nudged out Vancouver as the Canadian city with the highest hotel prices in January, according to CoStar, a global provider of real estate data, analytics and news.
Visitors to Canada's largest city faced an average daily room rate of $203.70, or $0.43 more than the $203.27 that Vancouver hotels charged guests on average during the month, CoStar's data show. In contrast, Edmonton's average hotel room rate in January was $136.94.
Vancouver's average hotel room rate in January increased more than 5.55 per cent year-over-year, from $192.61 in January 2023, while Toronto's rose more than 4.75 per cent from $194.46 in January 2023, according to the data.
The average daily room rate for hotels across the country was $175.38 in January, up about 4.3 per cent year-over-year.
Higher hotel room prices and inflation in general may have prompted some people to put off travelling. Hotel occupancy across the country declined 1.7 per cent, according to CoStar.
“Transient occupancy fell 3.7 per cent year-over-year, with most of the decline taking place on the weekends, suggesting that individuals are pulling back on discretionary spending,” said Laura Baxter, CoStar Group’s director of hospitality analytics for Canada.
“Warm weather and a lack of snow in popular ski areas contributed to the shortfalls as well, with particularly steep occupancy declines in resorts across Western Canada. Whistler and Banff hotels, for example, recorded occupancy declines of nine per cent and 12 per cent, respectively. On the positive side of the spectrum, the overall hotel sector is outperforming metrics in the wider economy, with the room rate growth outpacing the 2.9 per cent inflation reading.”
Toronto enjoyed the country's highest hotel occupancy rate in January, at 61.4 per cent, while Vancouver was close behind, at 61.1 per cent. Edmonton had the lowest occupancy rate in the country in January, at 44.3 per cent, according to CoStar.
