‘Flood of hotels’ concerns agency

Challenge now to fill extra rooms

Tourism Saskatoon will struggle to fill the hundreds of new hotel rooms in the city as the agency also deals with the elimination of its provincial funding.

Todd Brandt, president and CEO of Tourism Saskatoon, said the city is in the midst of an 18-month period during which 11 new hotel properties — either completed, under construction or planned — will add 23 per cent more rooms to the market.

For five years, from 2008 to 2012, Saskatoon led 64 communities in Canada with the highest hotel occupancy rates, he noted.

As a result, between 1,200 and 1,300 rooms are expected to be added to the base of 3,600.

“We needed more capacity because we were having lots of sellouts,” Brandt said in an interview. “Those days are over because of all this new capacity.”

Now, Brandt said the tourism industry faces a challenge to fill all the rooms by attracting events to the city.

“It’s competitive out there and we don’t win everything that we bid for,” he said. “It’s something we’re a little nervous about.”

As recently as the third weekend in June last year, Saskatoon faced a shortage of hotel rooms when multiple events scheduled at the same time left every hotel room in the city booked.

The “flood of hotels” has changed the landscape, Brandt warned.

“That’s a massive jump (in room numbers).”

Brandt, who appeared in front of city council’s executive committee on Tuesday, said he expects to return to council this year seeking an increase in the $405,000 contribution Tourism Saskatoon expects to receive from the city in the 2016 budget. The non-profit visitor and convention marketing bureau receives the bulk of its $3.8-million budget from a three per cent tax on hotel rooms to fund its destination marketing program.

Provincial funding of $150,000 from Tourism Saskatchewan was eliminated last year, which left the agency with a deficit; it faces another deficit this year.

Brandt called this “frustrating,” since the province’s largest city accounts for 28 per cent of the Saskatchewan tourism industry and is valued at $553 million a year.

“That’s a big chunk of money and 14,000 people are employed in the industry,” he said.

Despite the industry’s size, Brandt told council tourism is regarded as the “Rodney Dangerfield” of economic development.

“A lot of the community just doesn’t understand how tourism works,” Brandt said. “The workers building hotels don’t see themselves as part of the tourism industry.”

“IT’S COMPETITIVE OUT THERE AND WE DON’T WIN EVERYTHING THAT WE BID FOR. IT’S SOMETHING WE’RE A LITTLE NERVOUS ABOUT.”

TODD BRANDT