Hotels in Montreal enjoyed busy July

Figures provided by Tourism Montreal and the Hotel Association of Greater Montreal show that the city’s 2017 tourism season is enjoying a bit of a boom.

While the overall occupancy rate at Montreal hotels is down slightly from last year, the number of rooms booked is up by a fair margin, said Eve Paré, the CEO of the Hotel Association of Greater Montreal.

She said for downtown Montreal, which is defined as being between Atwater Ave. and St-Hubert St., the number of occupied rooms in July 2017 was 298,456, up from 282,337 last year.

For the entire island of Montreal, Paré said 384,406 hotel rooms were occupied in July 2017, up from 367,295 last year.

For the greater Montreal area, Tourism Montreal reported the number of available rooms was up 4.33 per cent to 483,626 in July, while the number of occupied rooms was 422,160, up 3.75 per cent. On top of that, the average daily rate hotels were charging in July was up 8.84 per cent to $198.86, which generated close to $84 million for hotels, an increase of 12.92 per cent.

On Thursday, opposition party Vrai changement pour Montréal issued a statement decrying a decline of 0.48 per cent in hotel occupancy in Montreal in July 2017, compared to July last year.

However, Paré noted that the occupancy rate does not tell the whole story, since there were 800 more hotel rooms available in July this year.

The occupancy rate for the island of Montreal was 87.6 per cent in July 2017, down from the 88.6 per cent in 2016, a decrease of one per cent, she said.

“The reality is the number of rooms occupied has increased,” Paré said. “If you look at the occupancy rate, there is actually a decrease, but that is because there are more rooms available this year compared to last year.”

She added that the reopening of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel on July 10 alone added about 500 extra rooms.

The Queen E was closed last July while it underwent major renovations. About 500 more rooms will be available by September.

Vrai changement also claimed that smaller hotels represented by a separate organization are suffering more, with a drop of three per cent. The Small Hotels Association of Montreal did not reply to a Montreal Gazette request for information.