Victoria needs more hotel rooms

I support adding new hotel room inventory for Victoria, such as Chard’s proposed hotel and retail development for the Duck’s Building and Canada Hotel, along the 1300 block of Broad Street.

Since 2012, the Queen Victoria, Travellers Inn, Admiral Inn, Dominion Hotel and Harbour Towers have all been converted into residential housing, to name only some. This represents a loss of nearly 1,000 hotel rooms.

Meanwhile, tourism has seen unprecedented growth. In fact, Greater Victoria attracts almost four million people per year and those numbers are increasing year over year.

According to Tourism Victoria, from 2011 to 2016, tourism’s economic output for the region has increased 20%, generating $2.3 billion in 2016. Although 2019 saw a 6% drop in hotel occupancy over 2018, it’s still at a very healthy 83.79%.

No wonder there is such a huge amount of pressure on the transient rental accommodation inventory in Victoria, which is attempting to fill this obvious void in the marketplace.

Naturally, the entire heritage façade of these buildings cannot realistically be retained for earthquake and fire-safety reasons. However, Chard’s proposal includes retaining historically significant elements of both of these buildings and the city’s Heritage Advisory Panel unanimously supported the project.

I encourage Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and council to move this project forward.

Grant Wittkamp Victoria