Hotels in Toronto
Encyclopedia
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
industry is one of the city's most important. The Greater Toronto Area
Greater Toronto Area
The Greater Toronto Area is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, with a 2006 census population of 5.5 million. The Greater Toronto Area is usually defined as the central city of Toronto, along with four regional municipalities surrounding it: Durham, Halton, Peel, and York...
has 183 hotels with a total of almost 36,000 rooms. In 2004 there were 8.7 million room nights sold. Toronto is a popular tourist destination, but most hotels rooms go to people travelling on business with about two thirds of rooms being taken by commercial, government, or convention travellers.
Toronto hotels are found in different clusters. The downtown core and financial district has a wide array of hotels. Many are near the Metro Toronto Convention Centre
Metro Toronto Convention Centre
Metro Toronto Convention Centre , located in Downtown Toronto, Ontario at 255 Front Street West, has of space. The convention centre was completed in October 1984 and is home to the 1330-seat John Bassett Theatre...
, and others, like the Sheraton Centre
Sheraton Centre (Toronto)
The Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel is the 33rd-tallest building in Toronto, and is the tallest all-hotel building in Toronto. When it opened in 1972 it was the second largest hotel in Toronto with 1,450 rooms, behind only the Royal York Hotel...
have their own substantial convention facilities. North of downtown the upscale Yorkville
Yorkville, Toronto
Yorkville is a district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, well known for its shopping. It is a former village, annexed by the City of Toronto. It is roughly bounded by Bloor Street to the south, Davenport Road to the north, Yonge Street to the east and Avenue Road to the west, and is considered part of...
neighbourhood has many of the city's most luxurious hotels. Hotels such as the Four Seasons, Windsor Arms
Windsor Arms Hotel
The Windsor Arms is a boutique hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 18 St. Thomas St. in the heart of the Yorkville neighbourhood. The hotel includes Club 22, Court Yard Cafe and a Spa....
, and Sutton Place
Sutton Place Hotel
The Sutton Place Hotels are a collection of sophisticated properties in North America. Each hotel is distinctly different in style, yet all offer timeless elegance, consistent product and dependable service...
are at the centre of the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
each year. Outside of downtown the area around Toronto Pearson International Airport
Toronto Pearson International Airport
Toronto Pearson International Airport is an international airport serving Toronto, Ontario, Canada; its metropolitan area; and the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration that is home to 8.1 million people – approximately 25% of Canada's population...
has a cluster of hotels and convention centres. The major highways through town also have a wide array of smaller hotels and motel
Motel
A motor hotel, or motel for short, is a hotel designed for motorists, and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles...
s along them.
Hotels of York
Few of Toronto's earliest hotels survive. The first prominent hotel to serve what was then York, Upper CanadaYork, Upper Canada
York was the name of Old Toronto between 1793 and 1834. It was the second capital of Upper Canada.- History :The town was established in 1793 by Governor John Graves Simcoe, with a new 'Fort York' on the site of the last French 'Fort Toronto'...
was the York Hotel located at King Street East and Berkley, today the site of the Toronto Sun Building
Toronto Sun Building
The Toronto Sun Building, at 333 King Street East at Sherbourne, is home to one of Toronto's daily English language newspapers, the Toronto Sun. Built in 1975, the most notable feature of the structure is the large mural on the south side. The mural is 55 meters wide and 7.6 meters high, covering a...
. Built in 1805, it was a central social venue for the city's elite. When the legislature was burned by he Americans during the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, it was at the York that the assembly met for a year while awaiting the construction of a new building. The York Hotel was demolished in 1846.
Nearby another important early hotel was Frank's Hotel, on nearby Market Square. It is most notable for being Toronto's first theatre venue. Beginning about 1820 travelling troops of actors would put on works of Shakespeare and other plays in the ballroom that sat about 100.
The central hotels served those travelling via the port and those staying in town. For travellers by land small inns and taverns grew up along each of the major routes out of the city. The oldest surviving hotel in Toronto Montgomery's Inn
Montgomery's Inn
Montgomery's Inn is a historic home and inn in the Islington neighbourhood of Etobicoke in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Built in 1832 in a Georgian style with later additions, the inn has been restored to an 1847 period, and operates as a museum of the City of Toronto. Once in danger of...
built 1832. Today a museum, it is located on Dundas Street
Dundas Street (Toronto)
Dundas Street, also known as Highway 5 west of Toronto, is a major arterial road connecting the centre of that city with its western suburbs and southwestern Ontario beyond...
, which was then the main road heading westwards. Lambton House
Lambton House
Lambton House is a historic former inn in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the last remaining building from the former village of Lambton Mills along the Humber River in the 19th century.-History:...
is another surviving hotel structure that also served those travelling on Dundas. Most hotels from this era do not survive. Two examples are John Finch's Hotel
John Finch's Hotel
Finch Hotel opened in 1848 by John Finch on Lot # 2, Concession # 1 , Toronto owned by Thomas Johnson since the late 1790s. Finch Hotel was operated by a series of innkeepers:* Thomas Palmer 1848-1860* John Likens 1860-1864* John Fenley 1869-1871...
and the Miller Tavern
Miller Tavern
The Miller Tavern was one of many 19th century inns along Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario .Originally called the York Mills Hotel, the three storey building dates to the 1860s. A barn to house horses was located on the north side of the building...
, both located on Yonge, then the major route north.
Railway hotels
Outside the central core smaller hotels grew up to serve the stations in what were then the outer reaches of the city. In the west these included the Gladstone Hotel and the Drake Hotel
Drake Hotel (Toronto)
The Drake Hotel on Queen Street West in Toronto, Ontario, Canada near Parkdale, was opened in 1890 as "Small's Hotel". At the time, the area was a major Canadian Pacific Railway hub near what was then one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the city....
while in the east New Broadview House Hotel
New Broadview House Hotel
The New Broadview House Hotel is a four story hotel at Broadview Avenue and Queen Street East in Toronto, Ontario.Built in 1893, the Romanesque style hotel was built for Archibald Dingham and located in the historic neighbourhood of Riverdale....
and the New Edwin Hotel
New Edwin Hotel
The New Edwin Hotel was a three storey hotel in Toronto. It was built in 1905 to serve railway passengers coming from a now closed station. The once dignified hotel for several decades was a seedy home for rent with daily and weekly rates...
were built. When the smaller railway stations closed in the middle of the 20th century, these hotels lost their main source of business. They became single room occupancy
Single Room Occupancy
A single room occupancy is a multiple-tenant building that houses one or two people in individual rooms , or to the single room dwelling itself...
facilities serving the city's poor and transient. The recent revival of Parkdale has seen the Drake and Gladstone transformed in boutique hotel
Boutique hotel
Boutique hotel is a term popularized in North America and the United Kingdom to describe intimate, usually luxurious or unique hotel environments. Boutique hotels differentiate themselves from larger chain/branded hotels and motels by providing personalized accommodation and services / facilities...
s and cultural venues.
The twentieth century saw a new generation of hotels, much larger and more monumental than before as the skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
came to prominence. The King Edward Hotel was established in 1903, and is the oldest major hotel still in operation in the city. In 1927 the Queen's was demolished at replaced by the Royal York Hotel
Fairmont Royal York
The Fairmont Royal York Hotel, formerly the Royal York Hotel and still often so called, is a large and historic hotel in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at 100 Front Street West. Opened on June 11, 1929, the Royal York was designed by Ross and Macdonald and built by the Canadian Pacific Railway...
. At the time the new hotel was the tallest building in Canada and quickly became the city's most elite lodging. Serving a different market the 750 room Ford Hotel
Ford Hotel
The Ford Hotel was a historic hotel in central Toronto. It was one of five hotels in the R.T. Ford & Company hotel chain and was identical to the Ford Hotel, Buffalo and Ford Motel, Montreal. The 750 room hotel consisted of three 12 storey towers on Dundas Street West, east of Bay Street. It was...
opened in 1928 offering very cheap rooms. It quickly became known as a centre of crime and vice and for the risqué entertainment in its bars. In the northern part of the city this era also saw the erection of the Park Plaza in 1929.
Motel era
The arrival of the automobile transformed travel to Toronto. The motelMotel
A motor hotel, or motel for short, is a hotel designed for motorists, and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles...
quickly became one of the most popular hotel forms. In the 1950s and 1960s this led to the creation of Toronto's famous "motel strip" along Lakeshore Boulevard, then the main western route out of the city. At its height the strip had many motels, each attempting to draw attention through eye catching architecture and street side advertising. In 1954 Highway 401 was built to the north of the city, and much traffic was redirected there in 1966 the Gardiner Expressway
Gardiner Expressway
The Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway, colloquially referred to as "the Gardiner", is a municipal expressway in the Canadian province of Ontario, connecting downtown Toronto with its western suburbs...
almost wholly redirected intercity traffic away from the area. The strip declined rapidly and by the 1980s the area was most known for its prostitution and gunfights. The recent condo
Condominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
boom in Toronto has seen most of the motels closed and demolished to be replaced with condo towers looking out over the lake. Today five structures remain only two of which are operational.
A similar, but less prominent, strip developed along Kingston Road
Kingston Road (Toronto)
Kingston Road is the southernmost major road along the eastern portion of Toronto, specifically in the districts of East York and Scarborough. Until 1998, it formed a significant portion of Highway 2...
in Scarborough, then the main eastern route out of town. Many of these still remain in operation, such as the iconic Hav-A-Nap Motel. While inner city travellers are less likely to take Kingston Road, today some of the Scarborough motel rooms have been rented for refugees awaiting decision on their claims with up to 700 rooms arranged by Toronto's community services department.
As Highway 401 rose to become Canada's busiest highway, it also became the centre of many hotel developments. Today there are dozens of hotels, mostly chain owned, located along the 401 in Toronto and many others in the rest of the Greater Toronto Area.
Modern Toronto
Sheraton Centre (Toronto)
The Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel is the 33rd-tallest building in Toronto, and is the tallest all-hotel building in Toronto. When it opened in 1972 it was the second largest hotel in Toronto with 1,450 rooms, behind only the Royal York Hotel...
, Toronto Hilton, Sutton Place, and Four Seasons adding thousands of new rooms to the market. The economic downturn at the end of the 1980s saw several hotels run into financial trouble. The Park Plaza, a Yorkville landmark since 1929, went into receivership in 1995 and was later bought by the Hyatt
Hyatt
Hyatt Hotels Corporation , is an international operator of hotels.Hyatt Center is the headquarters for Hyatt corporation...
hotel chain. The nearby Windsor Arms Hotel
Windsor Arms Hotel
The Windsor Arms is a boutique hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 18 St. Thomas St. in the heart of the Yorkville neighbourhood. The hotel includes Club 22, Court Yard Cafe and a Spa....
closed completely for several years. While it recovered in the late 1990s, another recession hurt the industry in 2001. In 2003 the hotel industry was badly hurt by the SARS outbreak that saw room occupancy rates plunged to 29%, far below the usual range in the 70s. In that year the Colony Hotel shut down and was turned into a University of Toronto student residence.
In recent years a booming real estate market, especially in downtown Toronto, has led to a number of new hotel projects, often in combination with condominium projects. An unprecedented number of major hotel projects are currently under construction in central Toronto, including the Trump International Hotel and Tower
Trump International Hotel and Tower (Toronto)
Trump International Hotel & Tower, Toronto is a mixed-use skyscraper currently under construction in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is being built by Talon International Development Inc., which is owned by Val Levitan and Canadian businessman Alex Shnaider....
, the Ritz-Carlton
Ritz-Carlton Toronto
The Ritz-Carlton, Toronto is a luxury hotel and residential skyscraper in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. At a height of 210 metres, it is Toronto's 8th tallest building....
, Living Shangri-La, and a new Four Seasons
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
Four Seasons Hotels, Inc. is a Canadian-based international ultra-luxury, five-star hotel management company. Travel + Leisure magazine and Zagat Survey rank the hotel chain's 84 properties among the top luxury hotels worldwide...
.
Discount Hotels
Surburban hotels in Toronto are primarily discount variety and is a cross of hotel and motel concept. Since the 1990s they have been marketed as business hotels.A list of chains operating in Toronto:
- Econo LodgeEcono LodgeEcono Lodge is an economy motel chain based in the United States and Canada. Econo Lodge is the second largest brand in the Choice Hotels system. It is one of the best known brands in its category and aims to provide affordable rooms to budget travelers. Econo Lodge properties contain a minimum of...
- Howard Johnson'sHoward Johnson'sHoward Johnson's is a chain of hotels and restaurants, located primarily throughout the United States and Canada. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Howard Johnson's was the largest restaurant chain in the United States, with over 1,000 restaurants...
- Holiday Inn ExpressHoliday Inn ExpressHoliday Inn Express is a mid-priced hotel chain within the InterContinental Hotels Group family of brands. As an "express" hotel, their focus is on offering limited services and a reasonable price. Standard amenities lean toward the convenient and practical which cater to business travelers and...
and Holiday InnHoliday InnHoliday Inn is a brand of hotels, formally a economy motel chain, forming part of the British InterContinental Hotels Group . It is one of the world's largest hotel chains with 238,440 bedrooms and 1,301 hotels globally. There are currently 5 hotels in the pipeline... - Hilton Garden InnHilton Garden InnHilton Garden Inn is a chain of hotels trademarked by the Hilton Worldwide. Hilton Garden Inns are considered to be upscale mid-priced hotels that are designed for both business and leisure travelers. The hotel brand is similar to that of the Courtyard by Marriott brand, a key competitor...
- NovotelNovotelNovotel is a mid-scale hotel brand within the Accor group. Novotel has close to 400 hotels and resorts in 60 countries, situated in the business districts and tourist destinations of major international cities.-History:...
- RamadaRamadaRamada is a hotel chain owned and operated by Wyndham Worldwide.- History :The lodging chain was founded in 1953 by longtime Chicago restaurateur Marion W...
- Radisson HotelsRadisson HotelsRadisson Hotels is one of the leading, full-service global hotel companies with more than 420 locations in 73 countries. The first Radisson Hotel was built in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1909, and was named after the 17th-century French explorer Pierre-Esprit Radisson...
- Days Inns - Canada