If the city doesn’t want to lose out on thousands of tourism dollars, the Chamber of Commerce says it needs up to 3,000 more hotel rooms to meet an expected influx of visitors attending future conferences at the BMO Centre.
Calgary Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Deborah Yedlin says now that the expanded BMO Centre is open, attention must shift to ensuring there are enough hotel rooms to keep up with the elevated demand the largest convention centre in Western Canada will attract.
“We need to create between 2,500 to 3,000 more rooms to address this scarcity,” Yedlin said. “If this shortage is not addressed, we will not realize the full potential of what the BMO Centre expansion represents as it could result in more than 100,000 lost night stays by 2031.”
Yedlin says it has already helped attract dozens of conferences, many of which would not have been possible without the expansion that allows the centre to host up to 33,000 guests at one time.
“And as a hub for visitors, it will help contribute to our global reputation as a leader in hospitality,” she added.
However, the problem is that the city doesn’t currently have enough hotel rooms to accommodate the excess number of visitors, which means the city would also lose out tourism dollars for the city’s food, drink, retail, entertainment and transportation industries.
Calgary Hotel Association’s Sol Zia echoes those sentiments, saying the expansion is wonderful for the city’s tourism industry, but more hotels are critically needed for a city that only has around 15,000 hotel rooms for 1.2 million square feet of convention space.
More importantly, there’s only about 5,000 hotel rooms in the city’s core where the delegates would want to stay to be close to the conference centres.
“When you’re comparing us to cities like Toronto and Montreal, we’re not even close to having the capability to host a convention of 15,000 delegates,” he says, adding that there are also other travellers to consider.
“So, we will feel a significant shortage of rooms, especially downtown. And that’s why we — along with the Chamber — are hoping to see plans for at least 1,100 rooms on Stampede grounds and in and around the BMO Centre.”
Zia says he believes the city would need to break ground on the hotel within the next 10 months.
“We’re not going to push for construction to start this summer – we know that’s not feasible,” he said, adding the process should at least be started by the end of the year to address the need for more hotels in the downtown core.