The Big Atlantic Canada Statistics Thread

[KnoxfordGuy]

New Brunswick has been consistently cracking the 1 billion in retail sales per month for the last several months. At least consumer confidence seems to be stable. Retail sales were released by Stats Can today. For February retail sales in New Brunswick were $1,032,000,000. Up 0.8% over January and up 10% over February 2015.

Could the lower dollar and more Americans shopping here and less Canadians shopping there have something to do with this? As the dollar dropped retail sales went up. Seems to be the case anyway.

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

New Brunswick has been consistently cracking the 1 billion in retail sales per month for the last several months. At least consumer confidence seems to be stable. Retail sales were released by Stats Can today. For February retail sales in New Brunswick were $1,032,000,000. Up 0.8% over January and up 10% over February 2015.

Could the lower dollar and more Americans shopping here and less Canadians shopping there have something to do with this? As the dollar dropped retail sales went up. Seems to be the case anyway.

That would make sense. We have a bigger border with Maine than with any other province, so Crossborder shopping has always been a factor here.

It'll be interesting how the numbers turn out in the next few months. We've got a rebounding Loonie and an HST increase coming; that might knock us below a billion again.

[The Conductor]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Right, but there is a difference between connecting an island of what was 120K people at the time to building a highway through a state which is lukewarm to the idea at best. With the Confederation Bridge everyone benefitted, and most wanted it...with the Maine Highway there's no actual guarantee that anyone in Maine benefits, and the sole people who gain from it are Maritimers, Central Canadians, and Irving, amongst other private corporations.

That is incorrect, the entire tourism industry in Maine (Sunday River, Saddleback, and Sugarloaf) would benefit greatly from it. As would the shopping tourism of Maine (Kittery and Freeport), and small but consistent manufacturing sector of Maine. Plus it would be of great benefit to Bangor and every motel and restaurant owner along the route which currently sit empty most of the time because of a lack of year round traffic. I just posted this in a different thread but it fits here as well: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141...-super-highway

[mmmatt]

Hi Folks...here to update my hotel nights sold stat for NB market.

NB Dept of Tourism was not posting the full data broken down to city level for the last couple years (2014 and 2015) but I was able to obtain it thorugh e-mailing them.

The years prior data can be found here: http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/thc/publications.html

This data refers to every time a hotel room was rented for 1 night = 1 room sold.



NB HOTEL ROOMS SOLD 2015

[MonctonRad]

Great stuff mmmatt!!

So, 100,000 more room-nights per year in greater Moncton than 10 years ago. That's pretty huge. It's no wonder there are rumours of four new hotels in downtown Moncton and Dieppe in the next couple of years.........

[mmmatt]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Great stuff mmmatt!!

So, 100,000 more room-nights per year in greater Moncton than 10 years ago. That's pretty huge. It's no wonder there are rumours of four new hotels in downtown Moncton and Dieppe in the next couple of years.........

Thanks! and just think with the new events center that could crack 600,000 by 2020.

I can see Fredericton bumping up too when their new convention center attached Hilton opens.

[Walk then Run]

This is interesting! The trending between SJ and Moncton is parallel up to 2009 and then it became a 1:1 ratio of a gain:lost between the two.

Also, I wonder what caused the positive blip in 2008...better marketing? Lower gas prices? Maybe that lame "Be in this place..." slogan wasn't so cheesy as I thought

[mylesmalley]

Wasn't there a big refinery refit that year?

[Walk then Run]

It may have been as there always seems to be a turnaround every year

[SaintJohner]

To be honest it's actually embarrassing to look at those stats, we in Saint John promote the city as a tourist destination, we have commercials and billboards, we promote uptown like its the place to be and yet our hotel numbers are horrendous.. I do not see why Saint John can't compete with Moncton... We consider the city an amazing and place, why such weak numbers in the hotel industry.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by SaintJohner

To be honest it's actually embarrassing to look at those stats, we in Saint John promote the city as a tourist destination, we have commercials and billboards, we promote uptown like its the place to be and yet our hotel numbers are horrendous.. I do not see why Saint John can't compete with Moncton... We consider the city an amazing and place, why such weak numbers in the hotel industry.

It would be better to look at the SJ numbers individually rather than trying to figure out why another city is doing more or less with their numbers. In terms of SJ an increase in cruise ship passengers and cruise ship visits does not equal an increase in hotel rooms because obviously these tourists do not need them. If you wanted to, you could theoretically combine cruise ship visitors to hotel numbers for SJ and the total would be much higher than simply looking at just hotel numbers. Overall revenue generated from tourism must be up in SJ if you consider the increase in cruise ship passengers plus the relative stagnation of hotel figures in the city.

I mean, utilizing this schedule, SJ is due to receive ~143K cruise ship passengers in 2016. If you add that number onto the 2015 hotel numbers you get into the ~375K/~385K range, higher than anything since 2007. The sky isn't falling.

It's not that SJ can't compete with Moncton, it's rather that Moncton is in a much better position to receive tourists due to its location. This isn't a competition between cities and it's obvious that NB as a whole is receiving more revenue from more used hotel occupancy and tourism as a whole. 2015 and 2016 numbers are going to be better due to the lower Canadian dollar. Besides, where is this point of view coming from that SJ's numbers should be higher or competing with Moncton's? They've been nowhere close in the past decade.

Singling out SJ's tourism advertisements and promotion is bizarre as every major city and destination in Canada does this to some degree. Uptown is arguably doing better than it has in the past quarter century and SJ is still an amazing place with or without hotel occupancy numbers decreasing or increasing.

New Brunswick's quarterly hotel occupancy rate is already exceeding that of 2015's:

TOTAL PROVINCE OCCUPANCY RATE %
2015 1ST QUARTER
JAN 34%
FEB 41%
MAR 42%
APR 43%

2016 1ST QUARTER
JAN 36%
FEB 43%
MAR 46%
APR 51%

8% YTD increase in accommodation occupancy for NB in April 2016. The Fundy Coastal Drive area saw a YTD increase of 14% for April alone (2015 35%, 2016 49%). 65% of rental properties indicated an increase in business for April 2016 YTD over 2015. NB is also seeing a 28% increase in US overnight visitors YTD 2016. 28%! I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out which city in NB benefits the most directly from US overnight visitors.

[Walk then Run]

I truly believe that the marketing quality of selling Uptown Saint John is bar none, but let's be realistic here that given a choice Frederictonians may be the only real draw to shop here, because I have a pretty good idea that Monctonians would need a really good reason to travel down (say nuclear bomb dropped on Trinity Drive).

What im trying to say is NB'ers are not lining up to stay overnight here...this goes without saying, so we need to take a page out of Moncton's play book and present SJ as a hub for numerous activities within a short distance plus,

Get more national and international events at the Convention Center
Get more concerts at HS
Get more historical site seeing such as development of Partridge Island

Lets face it SJ hasn't sold itself well to push those hotel numbers up

[L'homard]

Moncton has carved a niche for itself as a place where there are minor-sports tourneys almost every couple of weeks. It's astounding how many hotel nights are booked by moms and dads when you bring a few dozen sports teams to town. The late Ian Fowler used to issue stats on this every year, but I haven't heard the numbers since his death. I remember it being more than significant. I'm sure that hasn't changed over the years.
That''s just one factor but has always been a big one in the past.

[Taeolas]

I wonder if finishing Route 8 from Freddy to SJ would help? That would give SJ a full highway to it from the rest of North America (The route from Calais helps but I don't think Maine's finished their side yet). SJ is a destination, it's not en route like Moncton is, so people have to have a reason to go there. And if they are driving and coming from the west, then people have to go on a 2 lane highway to get there.

[SaintJohner]

My apologies jhikka, I guess I know nothing and don't have an opinion, your stats prove that Saint John greatly benefits and it's all sunny days from here on out.

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by SaintJohner

To be honest it's actually embarrassing to look at those stats, we in Saint John promote the city as a tourist destination, we have commercials and billboards, we promote uptown like its the place to be and yet our hotel numbers are horrendous.. I do not see why Saint John can't compete with Moncton... We consider the city an amazing and place, why such weak numbers in the hotel industry.

Moncton is the retail hub of the province which attracts a lot of people. Its central location also means they get a lot of larger events. I think that explains their high numbers.

Fredericton has the advantage of being on the TCH and having a large government and university presence.

I've actually been meaning to go on an overnight trip to SJ to try out some of the new restaurants and bars uptown.

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

I wonder if finishing Route 8 from Freddy to SJ would help? That would give SJ a full highway to it from the rest of North America (The route from Calais helps but I don't think Maine's finished their side yet). SJ is a destination, it's not en route like Moncton is, so people have to have a reason to go there. And if they are driving and coming from the west, then people have to go on a 2 lane highway to get there.

You mean Route 7. I dunno. Every time I hear about twinning Route 7 I shudder. It's a huge expense for a highway that doesn't have huge travel numbers and is relatively safe. I'm not sure it prevents people from traveling to SJ either, especially those people from out of the province.

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by SaintJohner

My apologies jhikka, I guess I know nothing and don't have an opinion, your stats prove that Saint John greatly benefits and it's all sunny days from here on out.

No need to be so flippant in your response. He makes some good points. Don't take it so personally.

[SaintJohner]

I'm just not a fan of him, comes on a defends everything Saint John does along with everyone else on here, then we have the Fredericton pages filled with page after page of boring talk about the same 6 things for months out of time. Moncton talking about retail and the constant need for chain restaurants, it's just silly. But as for JHikka he comes on here and goes after anyone who says anything negative (this is a discussion page for having debates and discussions about cities) he's a moderator and that's where it should end. Feel free to post, but don't use your power to go after people because they have a different opinion than you.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by SaintJohner

I'm just not a fan of him, comes on a defends everything Saint John does along with everyone else on here, then we have the Fredericton pages filled with page after page of boring talk about the same 6 things for months out of time. Moncton talking about retail and the constant need for chain restaurants, it's just silly. But as for JHikka he comes on here and goes after anyone who says anything negative (this is a discussion page for having debates and discussions about cities) he's a moderator and that's where it should end. Feel free to post, but don't use your power to go after people because they have a different opinion than you.

Saint John pessimism is cancerous.

If you'd like to provide some statistics to the Atlantic Canada Statistics Thread you're more than welcome to as opposed to merely providing conjecture. I thought my contribution on tourism and accommodation occupancy were a good counter-perspective in our discussion on how Saint John's numbers were apparently, and I quote, embarrassing, where I provided numbers to prove otherwise. You can view it as going after someone and I view it as providing a different, substantiated opinion. You haven't addressed my mention of cruise ship passenger numbers and have instead taken the route of complaining about my posting and other threads on this forum.

You don't have to be a fan of me but not many are going to be a fan of you if you continue to berate their discussions on this forum.