We looked at hotel prices across the country via Expedia, a popular hotel booking platform. Before this deep dive, it’s important to note that two cities in particular, Edmonton and Toronto, have their respective NHL teams in the playoffs for now. But that hasn’t impacted prices, at least compared to Vancouver, as much as you might think.

In Vancouver, Expedia’s first 20 recommended hotels came to an average cost of $678.10. On the highest end of that scale, a two-night stay would cost a visitor a whopping $1,199 per night, or $3,377 total. The cheapest visit is at the Cambie Hostel for $72 per night. Some people suggested checking out Airbnb listings instead of downtown Vancouver hotels.

Throughout 2022, Vancouver’s hotel market reached a room occupancy rate of 72.9%, which is also the highest amongst major Canadian urban hotel markets. This represents a 50.4% year-over-year growth in the utility of hotel room supply. Without an adequate increase in hotel room supply, Vancouver’s hotel rooms will continue to see escalating prices, visitors will choose to travel to other Canadian destinations outside of British Columbia, and the city and region will become less competitive with landing the rights to host tourism-generating conferences, conventions, and sports events. There would be opportunity costs of economic losses in the tens of billions of dollars and significant job growth impacts.

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