Canada’s hotel performance in February remains strong: STR

Canada’s hotel performance was up month over month from January 2023 to February 2023, with revenue per available room exceeding $100CAD for the first time on record, according to data from STR.

The data shows that in February 2023, compared to 2019 data, occupancy was up by 0.7 per cent, the average daily rate was up by 16.5 per cent, and the revenue per available room was up by 17.3 per cent.

"Canada's hotel performance trends that emerged halfway through 2022 have remained incredibly consistent, and February was no exception," said 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% 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 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% in February, signaling relative strength in the segment. The increased number of workers returning to office may prompt even more improvement for corporate demand.”

Manitoba saw the highest occupancy level in January 2023, while New Brunswick saw the lowest occupancy rate among the provinces and territories.