Dave Scharf, Centretown News
Ottawa Embassy Hotel and Suites is renovating to prepare for Canada’s 150th celebrations.Centretown hotels are currently undergoing renovations in anticipation of Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, including Ottawa Embassy Hotel and Suites and The Lord Elgin Hotel.
“It’s going to be an absolute banner year for the city,” says Frazer Berry, director of sales and marketing for Ottawa Embassy.
“It’s an exciting time to be in the hotel industry.”
Berry says the renovations started last December and are expected to be finished in August.
Renovations will be a complete transformation to a more modern look, including a new lobby, kitchen, meeting spaces and all guest suites and will be done on a few floors at a time.
“We were probably one of the last hotels to have a smoking floor on our 11th floor. We’ve gone completely non-smoking by renovating it first. Each floor is a carbon copy of the next one.”
Currently, three floors are out of order for renovations, bringing the room availability from 140 down to 112.
“As a result, it does mean that we’ve had to send a few groups to our competitors, but we’ve got some great competition beside us.”
Berry says it’s been a little bit of a challenge, but on the whole it’s been a really positive experience so far.”
The Lord Eglin will be in a similar situation when it starts renovations in May. Ann Meelker, director of sales and marketing for the hotel, says it will have a completely different look.
“We’re doing an extensive renovation (of) all guest rooms … and the corridors as well. It’s a big change.”
Rooms and corridors will be completely gutted and redone. The renovations are expected to last until late September and have fewer rooms available as up to four floors will be closed at a time.
In addition to the renovations, new hotels are popping up in Ottawa, including the first ever Canadian Hyatt Andaz, a luxury hotel, in the Byward Market expected to open mid-2016.
Steve Ball, president of the Ottawa-Gatineau Hotel Association, says all of this is timed to take advantage of 2017.
“We’re all optimistic. The target is 1.7 million additional overnight visitors to our marketplace, which is about a 20 per cent increase from what we normally see,” Ball says.
Ball adds the events announced for 2017, like the Juno Awards and Red Bull Crashed Ice championship, are hoping to attract new and returning tourists of all age groups.
“(Visitors) will see the city like they haven’t seen it before,” says Ball.
The Ottawa 2017 Bureau, of which Ball is a member, was designed to change the impression people have of Ottawa from when they visited years ago.
One of the biggest attractions will be Canada Day.
Jantine Van Kregten, director of communications for Ottawa Tourism, says Canada Day is bound to get lots of visitors for the weekend-long celebration.
“Canada Day is probably already the busiest day of the year,” she says. “Knowing Canada Day 2017 is a Saturday, which means Canadians have a long weekend, I just think that’s a match made in heaven.”
All the event announcements are causing a buzz and despite hotel renovations, both the Lord Elgin and Ottawa Embassy hotels are already getting advanced group bookings for 2017.
“I get about two calls a day from people looking into advanced bookings for May, June and July in 2017,” Berry says. “I’m seeing more calls for 2017 than I am for 2016.”
Meelker says the Lord Elgin is seeing a considerable amount of group bookings as well, however their booking system can only accept bookings one year in advance.
“People have been trying to book for a long time, especially Canada Day, so we do have a waitlist and we will contact them when our rates and inventory is finalized.”