Why Toronto's hotel prices are soaring and likely to stay high for a while
CBC
Hotel prices across downtown Toronto have skyrocketed and as the busy tourist season winds down, industry experts say there's no sign they'll come back down anytime soon.
They say consumers are paying substantially more due to a combination of factors.
"Prices are high for two reasons," said Wayne Smith, a professor in the hospitality and tourism management department at Toronto Metropolitan University.
"One is inflationary costs, so as the cost of everything goes up, the cost of hotels go up," Smith told CBC Toronto.
"The second thing is wages," he said.
Rising prices at Toronto hotels are mirrored in cities across the province and the country. Statistics Canada reported in July that traveller accommodation prices in Canada rose by 47.7 per cent in July compared to a year earlier, with prices in Ontario increasing by 70 per cent.
Smith said some hotels are still not operating at 100 per cent capacity because they aren't able to hire enough staff.
"The last two years, these hotels have not been profitable;" he said.
"They have been operating at losses ... so there is also a little bit of make-up going on as well."
The chief operating officer of the Annex Hotel, a small boutique hotel in downtown Toronto, said business has been steady since about May. He said his hotel has raised room rates, too.
"It's a competitive market," Ryan Killeen said.
"if your competitor is selling their rooms at $500, $600 and at high occupancy and you are sold out, the Toronto market is going to follow suit and compete," he added.
"It's a balancing act of what is viewed as price gouging and what is viewed as acceptable to your pre-existing consumers."
Killeen said the Annex Hotel is also making up for lost time, and although it's back to 100 per cent capacity, he said support from various levels of government is still required.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.