The good news is that Canadian occupancy and average room rates for all hotels were higher than those in the United States in 2009. The Canadian occupancy was just over 56%, slightly higher than the 55% reported in the US, but more importantly our average room rate was $117.55 relative to $97.51 in the US. That's a $20 differential! The Canadian RevPAR was $65.95, down 11.9%, which compares to $53.71 in the US, down 16.7%. So 2009 was bad, but it was far worse south of the border.

Of our major cities, Toronto fared the worst. For 2009, the citywide occupancy was 67.8%, down 3.8 points from 2008. The average room rate was $147.93, down $20.82 from the prior year. Some hotels reported decreases in average room rate of up to $50. A decline like that can take years to recover from. Toronto's RevPAR was $100.30 in 2009, down 17.0% from 2008. This decline is comparable to the US national average.

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