Fears of a Pan Am Games flop: Toronto faces empty hotel rooms, unsold tickets and angry locals
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The Pan Am Games, which start next week, are not the tourist draw organizers had hoped for, says Terry Mundell, president and CEO of the Greater Toronto Hotel Association.
Hotels are “very, very worried” that tourists will not come here for the Games, he said. “A lot of our hotel partners are running below their levels from last year.”
Government entreaties to use the roads less during the Games, to limit traffic jams, have given many people the message that they should stay away from Toronto during the Games, said Mundell, whose organization represents 170 hotels in Greater Toronto with a total of 36,000 hotel rooms.
“Part of our challenge is to get a balanced message out.” Organizers say they have sold just 600,000 tickets, less than half the 1.5-million tickets on sale.
