The COVID-19 pandemic may finally be taking a bite out of Canada’s hotel construction market.

For the first half of this year, planned and in-progress construction work in the hotel industry had been well ahead of the pace set in 2019. Third-quarter data from analysts Lodging Econometrics, however, shows a drop of 4 percent in the number of projects (277), and a drop of 7 percent in the number of rooms in the pipeline (35,836). Both figures are compared to third-quarter numbers from 2019.

At the end of the quarter, there were 87 projects and 10,321 rooms under construction—that was a gain of 2 percent in the number of projects and no percentage change in the rooms compared with Q3 2019.

Scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months, meanwhile, were 103 projects and 12,037 rooms. Those figures were down 18 percent and 17 percent respectively. Meanwhile, projects in the early planning stage stand at 87 projects/13,478 rooms, up 10 percent by projects and no percentage change by rooms.

Ontario continues to lead Canada’s construction pipeline with a record high 147 projects/18,163 rooms, and accounts for 53 percent of the projects in Canada’s total pipeline. British Columbia follows with 42 projects/5,970 rooms and then Alberta with 30 projects/4,770 rooms and Quebec with 27 projects/3,613 rooms. Collectively, these four provinces account for 90 percent of the rooms in Canada’s pipeline.

Toronto continues to be the busiest city in the country for hotel construction. The GTA accounts for 23 percent of all projects in Canada’s total construction pipeline. Montreal (19 projects/2,595 rooms), Vancouver (12 projects/1,662 rooms), Ottawa (10 projects/1,783 rooms), and Niagara Falls (10 projects/1,688 rooms) round out the country’s top five. Combined, those cities account for 44 percent of the rooms in the total pipeline.