After last year's hotel booking boom for Stampede, spending expected to level off
CBC
Following a record-setting number of hotel bookings during the 2023 Stampede, experts say those numbers, as well as hotel spending, are expected to level off this year — but that doesn't mean the hospitality industry is struggling.
Experts said hotel spending exploded last year, driving up room rates and pushing inflation in the hotel and travel industry to near double-digits over the past 12 to 18 months.
This year, however, is different.
"What we're seeing is a contraction in that trend," said Sean McCormick, vice-president of business development for data with Moneris, a payment service company.
As of March, year-over-year spending has fallen 12 per cent, McCormick said.
"That's massive because usually in an industry like tourism, where you can pretty much predict the busiest day of the year, normally you would see a flat curve, plus or minus two per cent," he said. "So when we see year-over-year dollar volume growth off 12 per cent, that's enormous."
In 2023, hotel spending in Calgary on the first and last Saturdays of Stampede increased by 19 and 12 per cent respectively, according to Moneris's data.
McCormick said those numbers are not expected to grow by much this Stampede — if at all.
"I think you're going to see at least flat numbers year over year," he said. "I think that would be a big win for events like the Stampede, given the economic times that we're in."
Following restrictions on travel during the 2020 pandemic, spending in the hospitality and tourism industries briefly boomed.
A recent BMO survey on summer spending insights found that despite the initial post-pandemic travel shock, travel activity has returned close to pre-pandemic levels.
McCormick said that while increases in spending helped the industry recover, inflationary pressures also increased hotel prices.
Seeing spending levels plateau a little means the hotel inflationary bubble won't burst.
"It would mean that the Stampede was holding on to the gains from last year … rather than having it fall off a cliff a little bit," McCormick said.