Hotel Performance Poor Despite Good Weather

Nanaimo / Mid-IslandTourism Bulletin – September 2009

Great weather and strong results for the BC Ferries did not help Nanaimo hotels with occupancy performance. As revenue per available room dropped $14.98 in September, BC Ferries saw some recovery from what has been a difficult year.

Frank Bourree, Christine Stoneman, Charles Shier – Chemistry Consulting Group Inc.

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Industry Points of Interest

• According to Statistics Canada, over 525,000 jobs in the tourism sector can be directly attributed to tourism demand. A further 1.1 million jobs depend on tourism.
• International Travel, Advance Information survey by Statistics Canada reports that US automobile and non-automobile trips to Canada in August 2009 decreased by 14.6% over August 2008. Overall, US visitation to Canada was down by 12.7% during August. During the same period, visitors from other countries declined by 14.2%.
• CTC Tourism Snapshot reports that there were only 2.4 million overnighters to the US, down 6% on the same period last year. Year-to-date, there has been an 8% decrease (12.5 million trips). At the same time, international travelers accounted for 2.3 million overnight stays in Canada, a 13% decline on August 2008.
• The new visa requirements and ongoing H1N1 flu virus woes meant only 14,200 overnight trips from Mexico to Canada in August 2009, a drop of 55%. In total, trips from Mexico between January and August 2009 tumbled 29% over the same period in 2008. On the other hand, visits from China to Canada rose 12% over August 2008.