STR: Canada’s February hotel revenue per available room exceeded $100 for the first time

February 2023 (percentage change from 2019)

Occupancy: 59.2 per cent (+0.7 per cent)

Average daily rate (ADR): CA$174.62 (+16.5 per cent)

Revenue per available room (RevPAR): CA$103.33 (+17.3 per cent)

“Canada’s hotel performance trends that emerged halfway through 2022 have remained incredibly consistent, and February was no exception,” says Laura Baxter, CoStar Group’s director of hospitality analytics for Canada. CoStar Group is the parent company of STR.

“Strong room rate growth across all segments and elevated transient demand, particularly on weekends, remain the main drivers of performance recovery,” Baxter said. “Group and weekday demand remained below pre-pandemic levels, with group occupancy down 12 per cent from 2019. January and February typically tend to be slow months for the segment, so we can expect the index to improve as we move into the high season for groups (April through November). We can also expect to see an improvement as international group travel reemerges throughout the year. Weekday occupancy, which can be used as a proxy for corporate travel demand, was down just 3 per cent in February, signalling relative strength in the segment. The increased number of workers returning to office may prompt even more improvement for corporate demand.”

Among the provinces and territories, Manitoba recorded the highest January occupancy level (70.4 per cent), which surpassed the pre-pandemic comparable by 7.5 per cent.

Among the major markets, Vancouver reported the highest occupancy level (74.4 per cent), which was 2.0 per cent above 2019.

New Brunswick (48.1 per cent) saw the lowest occupancy among provinces, up 2.3 per cent against 2019. At the market level, the lowest occupancy was reported in Edmonton (51.3 per cent) which was 4.9 per cent below the 2019 comparable.