Metro Toronto hotels in November were more occupied and more costly on average than those in Metro Vancouver for the second month in a row, according to new data from CoStar, a global provider of real estate data, analytics and news.
Toronto and Vancouver often flip back and forth in terms of being No. 1 or No. 2 for having the costliest and most occupied hotel rooms among major centres in Canada.
In July, Metro Vancouver notched the record for having the costliest average hotel room rates for any major Canadian city in any previous month: $358.35 per night.
In September, Metro Vancouver hotel rooms rates remained "head and shoulders above all the other markets," CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics, Laura Baxter, told BIV in November.
The average hotel room cost in Metro Vancouver in September was $337, she said. It then fell to $253.75 in October and $233.48 in November, according to newer CoStar data.
Metro Toronto's average room rate in October was $256.91, and it jumped to $304.60 in November, likely in part because pop singing phenomenon Taylor Swift played six concerts in Toronto in November, Baxter told BIV yesterday.
Countless Swift fans, known as Swifties, followed the singer on her Eras tour, which is the highest grossing musical tour in history.
Swift would later play three concerts in Vancouver in December but data for hotel room rates in December are not yet available.
Metro Toronto hotels also recently outperformed counterparts in Vancouver for occupancy. In October, Metro Toronto hotels had a 79.6-per-cent occupancy rate, compared with 77.5-per-cent rate in Vancouver. In November, Metro Toronto hotels bettered Vancouver for occupancy with a 76.4-per-cent rate, compared with 76.1 per cent.
"Strong occupancy and ADR (average daily rate) performance during Taylor Swift shows in Toronto was partially the reason that Toronto achieved the strongest metrics in November 2024," Baxter said. "November is also a strong conference month in Toronto, so hotel performance metrics are often higher in Toronto than Vancouver."
In the first 11 months of 2024 combined, however, Metro Vancouver's hotels were the costliest and most occupied, according to CoStar.
Baxter pinpointed Metro Vancouver's average hotel room rate in the first 11 months of 2024 at $283, with a 79-per-cent occupancy rate.
On a year-over-year basis for the month of November, Metro Vancouver hotel rooms were more filled and costlier than they were in 2023.
In November, the average room rate of $233.48 in Metro Vancouver was up by more than nine per cent from the $214.08 rate achieved in the same month in 2023. The Metro Vancouver hotel-room occupancy rate in November, at 76.1 per cent, was 2.7 percentage points higher than in the same month in 2023.
High hotel prices and occupancy rates are why many in the hospitality sector are urging real estate giant Cadillac Fairview to build hotel rooms as part of its plan for the site that formerly housed the Four Seasons Hotel.
Cadillac Fairview has applied to the City of Vancouver for a demolition permit to remove the current tower.
