Can the Taylor Swift effect jolt Toronto's sputtering tourism industry?

Visitors injected billions of dollars into Toronto’s economy last year, a new study finds, but tourists have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels amid signs of slowing growth.

Growth also appears to be sputtering. Hotel bookings in May nudged down from a year earlier, said Destination Toronto CEO Andrew Weir. July and August are pacing between one and two per cent behind where they were at the same time last year. "Family budgets are getting squeezed and that translates into discretionary spending, which includes tourism," Weir said.

Nonetheless, leisure tourism has rebounded more than the corporate kind. The sluggish return of trade conventions and business travel more broadly accounts for much of the plateauing in tourism this year. "If we're only selling within the Toronto or Ontario economy, then you’re not growing, you’re just kind of moving money around within it," Weir said.

"We're asking for one penny on the dollar" — a $100 restaurant bill would yield $1 for the city, for example.

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