STR Reports Canada Hotel Occupancy Reached Three-Year High In August

According to STR’s August 2022 statistics, Canada’s monthly hotel occupancy hit its greatest absolute level for any month since August 2019.

August 2022 (percentage change from July 2019) – Occupancy was 76.4% (-3.0%), ADR was CAD212.38 (+14.6%), and revenue per available room (RevPAR) was CAD162.36 (+11.2%).

Each of the three important performance measures indicated inferior comparisons with 2019 when compared to July. When adjusted for inflation, ADR was up 2.7% from pre-pandemic levels.

“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 had the highest August occupancy rate (94.0%) among the provinces and territories, which was 0.2% lower than the pre-pandemic comparison. Among the big markets, Vancouver had the greatest occupancy (85.7%), a 5.1% fall from the previous year. Saskatchewan has the lowest occupancy rate of any province (62.2%), up 3.0% from 2019. At the market level, Edmonton had the lowest occupancy (+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 with the elimination of all COVID-19 entry restrictions on 1 October.”