Halifax hotel room shortage leading to sky-high prices

What’s causing the high prices at Halifax hotels?

Finding an affordable hotel room in Halifax right now is about as easy as seeing the city through Monday’s thick fog.

A quick scroll though a booking site for this weekend shows a stay in downtown core will cost anywhere from $400-to-$700 dollars a night.

“I’d like to see more, particularly in the downtown area,” says Tim Rissesco, CEO of the Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission.

He says he hears complaints from people all the time about the cost of a hotel stay.

“Lots of times visitors are saying to me they are paying $300-$400 for hotel rooms. We’d like to see maybe if there was more supply, that would moderate prices a little bit.”

Rissesco would like to see some of that supply pop up on the Dartmouth side of the harbour.

“We have a few hotels out in Burnside and Dartmouth Crossing and there’s a number out near the airport, but right in downtown Dartmouth, we don’t have a hotel right now.”

Five hotels have been built in the last five years in downtown Halifax.

Moxy is one of them, opening its first location in Canada in 2024. It added 160 rooms in the city’s core.

“Halifax is just such an up-and-coming city, there’s always so many events,” say Rachel Spicer, Moxy’s event manager.

One of those events is SailGP, which is happening this weekend. It’ll bring in thousands of people from around the world, many of them for an extended stay.

“People look at our event calendar in Halifax and book their stays around that. When you have something like SailGP they come for the event, but they stay just to explore,” Spicer says.

Spicer confirms they are close to being full for the weekend.

Non-resident overnight stays peak in July and August and so will room prices.

Currently Halifax has 7,000 hotel rooms across the municipality.

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