By Steve Ball
Approximately 11 million people visited Ottawa in 2019. As in many other Canadian cities, they came to attend meetings and conventions, were part of a group-travel excursion, or just came to explore the many great attractions and events that Ottawa has to offer. During their visit they spent money, lots and lots of money.
Ottawa Tourism reports about $2.2 billion was contributed to our local economy last year from tourism. Visitors spent money in hotels, restaurants, retail outlets and for entertainment. This of course makes the ByWard Market an attractive destination for visitors, as much of what they want is offered right here.
By my calculations, there are 27 hotels within a 10-minute walk of the Market, and combined they represent 5,762 bedrooms. Ottawa’s average annual hotel occupancy in 2019 for all properties was a respectable 73%. The occupancy is traditionally well over 80% during the summer months.
Using that annual average of 73%, the math tells us we had well over 1.5 million room nights sold in these 27 hotels alone during 2019. Often there is more than one person staying in a room; therefore a conservative estimate would suggest over two million guests were within a short walk of the ByWard Market. That’s about twice the population of the region.
The OGHA has 55 members in total representing another 5000 hotel rooms outside of the 10-minute walking distance. Many guests at these properties would also visit the By Ward Market during their stay, but perhaps arrive by car or taxi. Needless to say, when you add up all the potential out-of-town customers it’s an astounding number. Unfortunately, 2020 will deliver only a small fraction of that customer base. When COVID-19 took hold of the world in mid-March travel came to a screeching halt. Occupancy levels of hotels around the world dropped to historic lows, with recovery in the sector expected to take years.
This summer looks bleak for our local tourism industry. With many of our blockbuster attractions expected to be closed this summer it will be difficult to encourage leisure travel even though there is a reported pent-up demand for domestic road trips. The talented team at Ottawa Tourism have great summer campaigns ready to launch but will they succeed in attracting visitors? Will a virtual Canada Day fill any hotel rooms? With summer hotel occupancy expected to be in the single digits, millions of our best customers will just not be here. The lack of visitor traffic this year will emphasize the critical importance tourism plays to the success of the Market and crystalize why we need to nurture this gem as a key tourism asset.
I applaud the City’s vision of a rejuvenated ByWard Market outlined in the Public Realm study and once executed this plan will provide some much needed cosmetic and street-level improvements. As a next step though, we need to take a broader and longer-term view to resolve the really big issues that negatively impact our ability to get to the next level, including the complex and growing social challenges related to homelessness, mental health and drug use, not to mention the ridiculousness of still having a downtown truck route ploughing through the core of our city causing traffic congestion and significant noise and pollution. All the while we must ensure we provide a safe, affordable and a healthy environment for people and their families that have chosen to live in the growing concrete jungle surrounding the Market.
As business leaders living in the Capital of our country, we owe it to Canadians to do better. Ottawa is beautiful and we are proud to call it home. We do so many things right and have a great base to work from. But the Market needs some immediate attention and significant investment. That may be hard to contemplate during the financial crunch of COVID-19 but necessary none the less.
If action is driven by necessity, then I expect there will be plenty of renewed interest to talk about this in the fall. The timing is good as we have the important 200th anniversary of the ByWard Market coming in 2027. Ottawa demonstrated in 2017 that we are good at throwing birthday parties so let’s look forward to making 2027 an equally great celebration for Canadians by featuring a polished-up version of the ByWard Market as the guest of honour.
Steve Ball is the President of the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association and a resident of George Street.