Canadians may love to poke fun at Toronto, but the rest of the world seems to love visiting the city. For the first time ever, in 2011 the number of hotel room nights sold in Toronto hit 9.1 million, up from 8.9 million the year before.
Canada’s largest city last year played host to a whopping 10 million overnight visitors – about four times its population. And for the first time since 2006, Toronto has seen an increase in overnight visits from our neighbours south of the border.
Even though U.S. visitors accounted for the largest group of international guests (more than 2 million), overseas countries such as China, India and Brazil were the fastest growing markets. Tourism Toronto estimates that overseas guests account for 14 per cent of visitors to the city.
According to the agency, visitor spending in the Toronto region totaled $4.6 billion in 2011 (including non-overnight trips).
"The momentum of the past several years and repositioning of our product has propelled Toronto into another strong year," David Whitaker, president and CEO of Tourism Toronto, said in a statement. "Although not without some challenges, in 2011 we continued to focus on high-value visitors from the U.S. and looked to key overseas markets such as China, India, Brazil and Western Europe for growth."
Although the number of U.S. visitors to Toronto increased in 2011, a key market showed a significant loss: only about 191,000 visitors from the U.K. came to Toronto last year, a 2.6 per cent decrease.
More than 1,000 new hotel rooms opened in Toronto last year, meaning it only lags behind Nashville and New York City in terms of growth among North American cities.
A number of luxury hotels opened their doors in recent years, including the Ritz-Carlton Toronto and Le Germain Maple Leaf Square. Among the hotels slated to open in 2012 are the Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto and the Shangri-La Hotel, Toronto.
The city played host to a number of high-profile events in 2011. The Juno Awards, the Greenbuild International Conference and the International Indian Film Academy Awards all took place in the city. In addition, Toronto is set to host the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference later this year.