Hundreds of hotel rooms in Nanaimo are available after the COVID-19 pandemic brought vacancy rates down to five per cent. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

empty rooms

Nanaimo hotels signal need for federal help to survive COVID-19 pandemic

Jun 16, 2020 | 1:20 PM

NANAIMO — Hotel operators face an uncertain future as they survey the widespread damage inflicted by COVID-19.

Dan Brady, executive director of the Nanaimo Hospitality Association, told NanaimoNewsNOW occupancy rates in some cases near 90 per cent plummeted overnight to the five per cent range in mid-March. This left reeling hoteliers with sizable revenue losses and skeleton staff levels.

Brady said unavoidable expenses like mortgages and property taxes mean senior government assistance will be needed later this year to prevent some hotels from shutting down.

“Hotels cannot survive with 50 per cent occupancy in the heat of summer and then go down into the 20 per cent occupancy in the winter,” Brady said.

“It’s a pretty big nut to crack for some of those business owners. We are going to need help.”

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Brady said while many supports such as a resiliency program launched by Tourism Vancouver Island will help, much more financial help for hoteliers will be required.

Days Inn Nanaimo on Nicol St. is one of roughly 40 Nanaimo based hotels and motels beat up financially by the prolonged COVID-19 fallout.

General manager Joan Spencer said the last few months was “devastating” for their 79-room operation, which is down $400,000 year-to-date.

“That really does hurt any improvements that we can make going forward. We’re constantly looking at ways we can improve the property…but some of those things will have to go by the wayside.”

Spencer said a small silver lining is the annual shutdown of Harmac Pacific pulp mill, which is currently filling otherwise-empty rooms with numerous out-of-town trades crews.

“We’re probably doing better than a lot of properties, we’ve been doing this for years and these companies continue to come back and stay with us.”

The Days Inn shut down for more than one month due to COVID-19, which Spencer believed was the only local hotel closure due to the pandemic so far.

She said an assurance of property tax relief and continuation of the federal wage subsidy program would help the local industry weather the COVID-19 storm.

Coast Bastion Hotel general manager Dave McQuinn said in mid-March they were busy fielding cancellation requests for three weeks.

Those who did stay at the 179-room hotel included self-isolating emergency response workers and relatives keeping an eye on elderly loved ones in the region.

McQuinn said in a typical summer about half of their guests are from outside the province.

However, he said their union pension fund ownership structure allows them to “take a punch in the nose” and survive COVID-19.

McQuinn, who also serves as treasurer of the BC Hotel Association, said three-quarters of their 100 employee workforce is currently laid off.

“We would desperately like to get those people back to work, this is a real people impact,” McQuinn said.

ian@nanaimonewsnow.com
On Twitter: @reporterholmes