The summer has been healthy so far for the Montreal tourism industry, especially hoteliers, according to the mid-season report published Thursday by Tourisme Montreal. After being anemic in summer 2020 and 2021, hotel occupancy rates in the metropolis are now almost as high as in 2019, which was a record year. In June, for example, they fell from 84.2% in 2019, to 12.3% in 2020, to 24.3% in 2021 and finally to 74.8% in 2022, according to the Association of Grand Hotels. Montreal (AHGM).
“The hotel industry has suffered in Quebec, but in Montreal even more. We were in the dark red, because Quebecers came out of the big cities in the summer,” recalls AHGM President and CEO Jean-Sébastien Boudreault. “We got into a lot of debt, but we are starting to get back on top. The latter expected a recovery, but not as fast; he also believes that 2023 will also be a good year, as several events scheduled for 2020 and 2021 have been postponed to next year.
Hotel revenues this year exceeded those of 2019 due to the increase in room prices. However, the relief is not yet total for the environment. “We hear about the eighth wave and we see the fall coming. As long as we have not spent next winter without closing, we will always have a little fear,” underlines Mr. Boudreault.
A winter without forced closures could also bring workers who left this sector of activity, which they considered too unstable, back home. There is a lack of 10 to 15% of the workforce in accommodation establishments in hotels in the metropolis, notes the CEO of the AHGM.
The influx of visitors for the first six months of 2022 also exceeded Tourisme Montréal’s forecasts, reaching 75% of the number of tourists who visited the city during the same period in 2019.
“We worked almost like at war to bring visitors back,” reports Manuela Goya, vice-president of public affairs for Tourisme Montréal. “We had lost congresses; we went looking for them. We ran promotional campaigns focusing only on our most important markets, such as France, the United States and Ontario. »
The organization also attributes this rise to the return of a majority of air links, artistic festivals, the Formula 1 Grand Prix and other sporting events. Mme Goya believes however that it will be necessary to continue to deploy efforts to win back the hearts of tourists: “There is nothing for granted. »