Vancouver Struggles With Tourism Boom Due To Rising Costs And Overbooked Hotels

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Vancouver is having a roar twelvemonth for tourism successful 2025, and home travelers are connected nan rise, contempt lingering recreation restrictions and simmering tensions betwixt Canada and nan U.S. The metropolis pinch its beautiful scenery and booming taste segment has knowledgeable an detonation of tourists, driven almost exclusively by Canadians who person chosen to enactment adjacent location for vacation. Still, galore are panicking, and nan metropolis is vocally agonizing complete mounting fears of a crunch connected edifice abstraction astatine escalating prices.

During nan first 4th of 2025, Vancouver tourism conscionable hardly approached nan pre-pandemic levels, pinch astir 96% of nan erstwhile number of visitors. A batch of nan summation has besides been attributed to home travelers forgoing world expeditions successful nan look of governmental and economical tensions and nan increasing disbursal of recreation to nan U.S. It has turned Vancouver into 1 of our country’s apical staycation destinations. “2025 is seeing america break tourism records, peculiarly successful nan opening months of nan year. Summer is looking up for sure, but request is elbowing retired supply.”

Vancouver: From Hotels to Higher Prices

Tourism has boomed, but location is conscionable not capable edifice abstraction successful Vancouver. Hotels successful Vancouver are already much than 80% afloat for July, a number that has risen consistently complete nan past fewer months. Such precocious request has fueled fears that costs of lodging will skyrocket, putting nan compression connected visitors who already person to salary premium prices for edifice rooms and rental homes.

One of nan biggest basking buttons for nan metropolis has been nan deficiency of edifice inventory, peculiarly erstwhile you see that nan number of edifice rooms successful Vancouver has been astir unchangeable since 2002. In a metropolis wherever tourism is nan lifeblood of nan economy, nan request to location visitors has emerged arsenic a pressing issue. Chwin admits that nan metropolis is adding edifice supply, but improvement is slow, and nan request is importantly up of supply. “We are successful adjacent interaction pinch developers to effort to velocity this process up, but nan truth is we person been underserved for nan past decade, and we request to adjacent that gap,” he said.

Other tourer activities, including car rental, person besides been hard-hit. Rental cars are successful specified precocious request that moreover their customers can’t find capable to rent erstwhile here, which only compounds nan frustration. With Vancouver’s tourism manufacture already strained and efforts by nan section authorities to find ways to summation edifice capacity and summation accessibility to different amenities, nan interest remains: is much request really what nan vessel calls for?

The US Visitors and Vancouver Tourism Growth

Vancouver has knowledgeable beardown maturation coming from Canadian visitors, but a noticeable alteration successful visitation from nan U.S. Even pinch strained Canadian-American relations, Americans’ visits to Vancouver person remained stable, constituting 24% of each out-of-country visits. Still, nan tourism manufacture is alert that expanding prices and a edifice compression tin scare disconnected American tourists, who already person nan action of Seattle, a metropolis that keeps increasing its edifice market.

As Vancouver continues to turn and support tourism, nan US marketplace continues to beryllium instrumental successful Vancouver’s visitant economy. The maturation successful home recreation successful Canada hasn’t afloat compensated for nan deficiency of American visitors, moreover though 28 percent of Vancouver’s wide spending connected tourism is from those visiting from nan US. But nan interest is that arsenic accommodation becomes progressively constricted and expensive, American visitors mightiness look for alternatives, specified arsenic cities for illustration Seattle, which has a booming edifice market.

Seattle’s Marketing Success pinch Canadians

As Vancouver struggles to header pinch accrued demand, conscionable crossed nan separator successful Seattle nan problem has go an opportunity. The metropolis started its “Open Arms for Canada” promotion pinch steep discounts for Canadians to recreation to Seattle. The metropolis kicked disconnected its “Open Arms for Canada” run pinch large discounts for Canadians to recreation to Seattle, including a 30 percent discount during an MLB crippled betwixt Seattle Mariners and nan Toronto Blue Jays. The run did rather well, collecting complete 1,000 discounts wrong 3 days and driving Canadian visitors who mightiness person different turned to Vancouver.

The push by Seattle reflects really cities tin respond to shifts successful nan tourism industry, peculiarly successful nan twelvemonth of a world pandemic. Seattle has positioned itself arsenic an antidote to that, discounted airfares and friends invited for Canadian visitors successful hand, while Vancouver grapples pinch overcrowding and precocious prices.

Impact of nan Current Boycott

In a twist, nan recreation boycott of nan U.S. by galore Canadians has created a roar of sorts successful home tourism wrong Canada. While Vancouver tourer roar seems to beryllium driven by this trend, 1 cannot thief but wonderment if this will beryllium piled connected apical of a continuing fetishization of nan city. Vancouver will person to find a measurement to reconcile nan expanding number of visitors pinch a metropolis infrastructure that tin accommodate them, but support a metropolis that locals and visitors tin proceed to bask without taxing its resources beyond capacity arsenic nan summertime progresses.

What adjacent for Vancouver’s tourism industry?

Going forward, Vancouver could beryllium entering a treacherous balancing act. The city’s tourism manufacture is booming, and nan shortage of edifice rooms and skyrocketing prices are sizeable obstacles. Officials are scrambling to travel up pinch ways to adhd capacity and services astatine hotels arsenic nan summation successful passengers continues, but it isn’t yet clear if their plans will beryllium capable to forestall a crush of humanity and pricing problems from tarnishing nan acquisition of nan tens of thousands of visitors expected.