Montreal crowds return in full force this summer after years of pandemic lows

Despite unseasonably wet weather,Montreal has welcomed as many visitors halfway through the summer as it did during the same period in 2019 the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic hammered the tourismindustry.

TourismeMontral says hotels are at 80 per cent occupancy, even with an increase in the number of rooms available.

Yves Lalumire, CEO ofTourisme Montral, says restaurant occupancy reached 95 per cent over the weekendone of the busiest of the year.

"This makes up for the extremely difficult years we've had,"Lalumire said in an interview.

TourismeMontral says people from the U.S. and France make up most of the visitors to the city. There has also been a noticeable increase in people visiting from other countries, most notably the U.K., Mexico and Brazil.

The agency attributes much of the success to the various summer festivals and eventsin Montreal this year,several of which saw record crowds, including the Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal Pride, Osheaga and Just for Laughs.

Over the weekend, Metallica played two shows at the Olympic Stadium on Friday and Sunday, filling 63,750 seats each night, according to Evenko.

Since the start of the summer, the city has hosted more than 80 business and sporting eventsfigures similar to those for the same period last year.

Lalumiresayshis organization has invested heavily in"leisure" clientele in recent years, because "business" clientele arenot back, and may never return to the levels achieved in 2019.

TourismeMontral has an optimistic outlook for the rest of the tourist season, projecting a six per cent increase in the volume of visitors until October.

But while the upsurge in tourism is exceeding expectations in Montreal, that'snot the case in all regions of Quebec. Some, such as the Gasp peninsula, the Magdalen Islands and the Charlevoix region, are experiencing lower-than-expected traffic this summer.

"Overall, it's Toronto and Montreal that have recovered the most, because they were really the ones most affected by the pandemic," Lalumire said."Urban tourism is coming back to life."