The Q2 2024 Canada Hotel Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics (LE) reveals that at the close of the quarter, there are 322 projects/40,297 rooms in the country’s total pipeline. These record-high project and room counts represent a 17% increase in projects and an 8% increase in rooms year-over-year (YOY).
There continues to be a swell of projects under construction in Canada, up an impressive 54% by projects and 51% by rooms YOY, with 80 projects/10,603 rooms at the Q2 close. Projects scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months, at Q2, stand at 80 projects/9,249 rooms, while projects in early planning stand at 162 projects/20,445 rooms, for a 20% and 1% YOY increase, respectively.
Chain scale segments with the largest number of projects in Canada’s total pipeline at the Q2 close include the upper midscale segment with 131 projects/13,822 rooms, accounting for 41% of the project and 34% of the rooms in the country’s total pipeline, and the upscale chain scale with 57 projects/7,850 rooms. Projects in the midscale segment grew an impressive 56% by projects YOY and 51% by rooms YOY at Q2, reaching a new record-high of 42 projects with 3,546 rooms. The upper upscale segment also reached record-highs at Q2, to close the quarter standing at 21 projects and 4,770 rooms, up 40% by projects YOY and 31% by rooms YOY.
Provinces with the most projects in the pipeline in Canada at Q2 are dominated by Ontario, which accounts for 59% of the projects and 60% of the rooms in the total pipeline and reaching record-high counts of 189 projects/24,228 rooms. Next is British Columbia with a record-high 59 projects, accounting for 8,439 rooms. Together the two provinces account for 77% of the projects and 81% of the rooms in Canada’s total pipeline at Q2. Distantly following is Quebec with 21 projects/2,442 rooms, and Alberta with 18 projects/1,822 rooms.
The top cities in Canada at the Q2 close are led by Toronto with 68 projects/9,532 rooms, a new record-high project count that claims 24% of all the rooms in Canada’s total construction pipeline. Following distantly are Vancouver with 21 projects/4,075 rooms, Montreal with 17 projects/2,062 rooms, Niagara Falls with 15 projects accounting for 4,244 rooms, and Ottawa-Hull, also reaching a record-high project count at Q2, with 14 projects/1,992 rooms. These five cities account for 42% of the projects and 54% of the rooms in the total pipeline.
Six new hotels with 815 rooms opened in Canada during the first half of 2024, with an additional 20 new hotels/2,129 rooms scheduled to open before year-end. LE’s total new hotel openings forecast for 2024 anticipates 26 new hotels and 2,944 rooms will open by year-end.
In 2025, LE analysts forecast another 37 new hotels/4,055 rooms to open, for a 1.1% new supply growth rate increase. LE’s newly released 2026 New Hotel Openings Forecast for Canada anticipates 52 new hotels/5,812 rooms will open, for a 1.6% new supply growth rate increase.