Canada expect a booming summer in Montreal

Published on : Wednesday, May 25, 2022

As warm weather sets in, Montreal’s tourism industry is gearing up for what it hopes will be a banner year. Tour guides, hotel operators and restaurant owners are hoping to cash in an opportunity not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Eight million visitors are expected to descend on the city of Montreal in 2022, shy of the record-setting 11 million in 2019.Most of the visitors are expected to be Canadians from other provinces andAmericans, the latter representing the largest of all international visitors and who traditionally spend the most per capita.

Hotel bookings are also anticipated to reach the 70 to 80 per cent of full capacity, according to Jean-Sébastien Boudreault, President of the Greater Hotel Association of Greater Montreal.

Some visitors have already arrived and they’re glad to be travelling again.

“Everybody needs to get back out and get doing things, get visiting things and seeing people,” Barbara Kostick, a tourist from Alberta travelling with her husband, remarked.

For one American couple, visiting Montreal was an obvious choice.

“We were looking for a place to go. We’ve never been to Montreal, we’ve been to Quebec many, many times but never to Montreal. We decided to come and check it out and it’s a beautiful day so it was a good choice,” Peter Healey, a tourist from Rhode Island visiting with his wife said.

The tourism industry is a multi-billion-dollar business that generates huge revenues for the city’s economy. The Formula 1 Grand-Prix and the International Jazz Festival are enormous attractions for crowds and the events help boost the bottom lines for business.

Both are scheduled to be back this year attracting tens of thousands of people.

The Executive Director of Montréal Centre-Ville is thrilled the events are back and millions of tourists are picking Montreal as a destination this summer.

“Tourisme-Montréal has noticed an incredible increase in searches for flights to Montreal, and on their website to know the programming to know what’s happening in the city,” Glenn Castanheria said.

While this year won’t likely break any tourism records — all signs are pointing to a strong year.

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Tags: Canada, Canada tourism, Covid-19, Montréal, Tourism news, Travel news