TORONTO — A rare solar eclipse expected on April 8 has piqued interest in hotels and home rentals across Ontario cities as stories around limited availability and rising prices are circulating ahead of the event.
In January, National Geographic tagged Niagara Falls, Ont. as the most picturesque place to view the eclipse with ideal vantage points and waterfalls.
Quite a few hotels in the city have sold out as of mid-March, and of available rooms now go for as much as $1,000 per night.
According to a recent MSN article, the Ramada Plaza near the falls still had a king-bed studio suite for two listed between $476 and $529 on the day of the eclipse, while a pair of queen beds in a non-smoking room was between $449 and $499. The Monday after the eclipse, the rate for the same suites dropped to between $89 and $99 per night and between $62 and $69, respectively.
Overall, the eclipse has been driving tourism in cities and towns across Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, P.E.I., Nova Scotia and Newfoundland who have ideal sight-lines for the event. Recent data from Airbnb showed that searches for listings in places on the “totality path” soared from April 5 to 8, compared to the same period last year.
“When we crunched the numbers, we found that there was a 300 per cent surge in search for cities along the path of totality on April 8,” Matt McNama, an Airbnb spokesperson in Canada told MSN. “There’s a huge amount of interest and I think we’ll see more and more people booking on Airbnb over the next month.”
The online marketplace says its listings outnumbered hotel stock as of March 5 by more than 18 times along the path of totality.
