Local hotel association assures that Ottawa hotels are not packed, as Premier claims
Posted Dec 23, 2020 04:02:00 PM.
Ottawa hotels are not as packed as Premier Doug Ford may think, according to a local hotel association.
One of the reasons Ford announced a lockdown needed to be implemented in Canada's capital this week was because he'd spoken to someone in the Ottawa hotel business, who said their hotel was packed with out-of-town visitors.
President of the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association Steve Ball says that's simply not true.
“I'd be curious as to who offered up that information, because certainly our data doesn't suggest that,” Ball tells CityNews' The Rob Snow Show, Wednesday, December 23.
He says their data points to an average capacity rate around 22 per cent, with roughly half of that due to local use, like isolation business or public housing.
Ball acknowledges that there are still visitors coming from COVID-19 hotspots like Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City, but that makes up a small portion of their business, and with a lockown only days away, the hotel outlook is even grimmer.
“We're calling [Tuesday, December 22] pink slip day,” says Ball.
Based on the lockdown, he knows of one downtown hotel “that lost $51,000 of business within the hour.”
