Floating hotels using cruise ships possible in Vancouver, says mayor

Canada Place cruise ship terminal in downtown Vancouver. (Destination Vancouver)

The hotel shortage outlook in Vancouver is so dire that the city could potentially see floating hotels as a measure to quickly introduce supply in order to better meet demand.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim shared this possibility during an event today for the business community held by Downtown Van, the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association.

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“Some groups are actually proposing bringing cruise ships here as temporary or permanent hotels,” said Sim, without revealing the interested proponents.

The use of cruise ships for added hotel capacity could be an added accommodations strategy in time for the expected surge in visitors during Vancouver’s major co-hosting role for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Although not confirmed, the prevailing expectation is Vancouver could host six matches during the month-long tournament, amongst other duties that come with being a host city in the lead-up and during the World Cup.

Sim pointed to the use of cruise ships as temporary floating hotels in Doha during Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

According to ESPN, three cruise ships under MSC Cruises were used by Doha, and they provided added capacity for over 13,000 overnight visitors in nearly 5,000 cabins. This included the use of the brand new 6,762-passenger capacity MSC World Europa, which is currently the world’s sixth-largest cruise ship with its 216,000 gross tonnage.

Depending on the ship, cabin type, length of stay, and stage timing during the World Cup, overnight stay rates were reportedly as low as US$118 per person.

MSC World Europa cruise ship berthed at Doha’s port, used as a floating hotel during the 2022 FIFA World Cup. (Shutterstock)

Three MSC cruise ships berthed at Doha’s port as floating hotels during the 2022 FIFA World Cup. (Shutterstock)

Given its size and breadth of amenities, dining, and entertainment options, MSC World Europa was also open to non-overnight visitors for a US$50 day pass. For those who stayed overnight by booking a cabin, ESPN called it “one of those places where the party never stops” and likened the ship to “being like Vegas on water.” All three ships were docked at Doha’s port.

“We can also be innovative — this is where we travel around the world, and we see what else is going on,” said Sim. “What they did was bring in cruise ships… and they looked at the challenges absolutely differently.”

“We have a blank slate. If it makes sense, we can make a business case for it, let’s be bold, and let’s do it. That’ll help us in the short term as we catch up with building more hotel rooms across the spectrum of the market.”

It is unclear where cruise ship hotels could be located in Vancouver, but if they were to be temporarily berthed at Canada Place, they would conceivably use the cruise ship terminal’s shore power infrastructure, which enables cruise ships to use clean electricity from the grid instead of powering up their auxiliary diesel engines.

For the 2010 Winter Olympics, cruise ships were part of the accommodations strategy in Vancouver, but the contracts fell apart. The RCMP cancelled the use of two Royal Caribbean cruise ships for the accommodations needs of thousands of security personnel, while the use of the Norwegian Star ship as a floating hotel for tourists was cancelled due to insufficient demand.

Cruise ships berthed at Canada Place in downtown Vancouver. (Shutterstock)

Sim says putting in place policies that help catalyze new hotel developments is one of his economic priorities, and this was also made evident by Vancouver City Council’s recently approved direction to encourage new hotels on the Granville strip as part of the entertainment district’s revitalization.

Last week during another event for the business community, Destination Vancouver CEO Royce Chwin also warned of the dire situation with the hotel shortage.

There are now about 13,000 hotel rooms in Vancouver — representative of a decrease of 2,000 rooms compared to 2008 in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics. The pre-pandemic losses were initially mainly due to hotel redevelopments into residential uses, while the pandemic-time losses were from governments buying older, low-end hotels for rapid housing for the homeless. The Metro Vancouver region as a whole now has about 20,000 hotel rooms.

With the absence of new major additional hotel developments, the tourism bureau projects Metro Vancouver’s available hotel room supply will fall behind real demand every summer starting in 2028. By 2040, the supply-demand imbalance will be throughout the year.

And by 2050, due to the inability to host overnight visitors and gain their spending on hotels, retail, dining, services, and attractions, there will be $20 billion in accumulated direct revenue losses to the economy. It is anticipated 20,000 more hotel rooms will be needed in Metro Vancouver over the next three decades.

“The missed opportunities… think about all the conferences we miss out on because we don’t have enough hotel rooms or the tourists who want to come here but can’t. And when they can’t, our restaurants and shops suffer as well, and there’s a huge spillover effect. We don’t have enough hotel rooms in the city, so we need to build more,” said Sim.

“We need all of it… and we also need to support our businesses. Hotels are a big deal. We need a balanced approach, but we haven’t been doing that, and guess what? We’re seeing the effects of it now.”

Sim added that for Vancouver, the World Cup will be much more than just a soccer tournament, as he intends to set policies and strategies in motion over the next three years that optimize what the City gets out of hosting the event.

“How do we make the event great? How do we make sure we engage our local businesses and set them up so that they have a fabulous time and make some money? We’re going to do that, but that was thinking way too small… The real opportunity is what your vision for the City is, and use 2026 to be a real launching pad for that,” continued Sim.

“We have to set up our entire city so our businesses are ready for it, so we can shut down streets and have live events — just knock the cover off the ball. And it’ll get even better because when the whole world sees what we do and we see what’s possible, it’s going to take Vancouver to another level.”

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