We go behind the scenes of Ottawa’s increasingly competitive hotel industry

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of downtown Ottawa, the lobby of the Marriott Hotel on Kent Street is calm and quiet. Guests who pass through the rotating front door would have no idea that, behind the scenes, an overhaul of the entire building is underway. “It’s almost like showbiz,” said general manager Colin Morrison. “It’s the duck on the water: serene on top and paddling like hell below.” The Ottawa Marriott is one of many hotels across the city, including in the downtown, undergoing a major renovation to bring rooms and common areas in line with modern tastes and needs. Hotels regularly renovate to manage wear and tear, but every 12 to 15 years a full overhaul of rooms and public spaces is needed to keep up with changing trends, said Steve Ball, president of the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association.  But, he told OBJ, it’s unusual to see so many hotels undertaking full renovations at once. “What the pandemic did do, is it delayed a lot of renovations that hotels had planned to do,” he explained. “They got delayed primarily because there were two years of very low occupancy, low revenue flow. So what we’re seeing now is a lot of those delayed, planned renovations starting to come into effect.” Each hotel renovation is different, Ball said, heavily influenced by brand identity, unique building and location factors, and the target guest base. But some trends are seen more widely, such as the move from carpeted floors to hardwood and a preference for cleaner, more modern lines.

“It’s not unlike businesses and restaurants,” he said. “Very few restaurants stay the same for 25 or 30 years. They update themselves or change their menu offering to stay relevant.” Now more than ever, he said it’s important for Ottawa’s older hotels to find ways to stay relevant. Over the next several years, he said, the city can expect an influx of new hotels, stirring up competition for customers. This year saw the opening of two new hotels: the AC Hotel by Marriott on Rideau Street, and the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel. The Alt Hotel Ottawa Airport and the Moxy Hotel Ottawa in the ByWard Market are also in the works and expected to open in early 2026. “A hotel makes a living based on their occupancy numbers, how full they are, but also what they can command as a room rate,” said Ball. “That’s driven by supply and demand. And we’ve got some great new brands coming. They’re going to attract interest from the travelling public. So (hotels) are absolutely correct to ensure that their product is something somebody wants to stay in. They have to stay in the game.” At the Kent Street Marriott, competitors new and old are always top of mind. “The Moxy, the AC, the Westin, the Delta — they’re all Marriott brands,” said Morrison. “We are absolutely in competition with all of them and we’re competing for the same customer. We are in a fortunate situation in Ottawa. While we are all fierce competitors, we all get along. So we know what’s going on in other properties and they’ve got a good idea of what’s going on with us.” But despite the camaraderie, he said there’s a certain peer pressure when it comes to upgrades. When shiny new hotels enter the market, he said that’s when an established hotel must get to work. And if one competitor decides it’s time for an update, others might follow. In his case, Morrison said the goal is to complete renovations as quickly as possible, not only to keep up with new entrants, but to pull ahead as the rest of the pack makes changes of their own. “If we’re first to the line with a renovated product, that will benefit us,” he said.

How to renovate a hotel from top to bottom

If you’ve ever renovated a kitchen or bathroom in your home, think of the logistical challenges and multiply them by 500. That’s what it’s like to renovate a hotel, according to Morrison.  “You’re only inconveniencing yourself when you’re doing your own bathroom,” he said. “In our case, we’re inconveniencing around 500 rooms worth of potential guests every day for the entire period that the renovation is happening.” Work began on the project at the beginning of this year, when Morrison said one floor was closed off to test the new designs. Once those were finalized, the work of flipping every room on site began over the summer.  The hope, Morrison said, is to have the rooms completed by mid-summer 2026. After that, the lobby, restaurant and other common areas will be closed to the public one at a time to be updated as well. Morrison said there is no timeline for that part of the project yet. “We want to get it done as quickly as possible,” he said. “You could equate it to getting your car repaired. You need to do it, but during that period of time where you don’t have your car, it hurts. But it’s something that we need to do and we will look to get that completed as quickly as possible.” In total, the teams working on the Marriott renovations need four weeks to remove furniture, demolish, replace fixtures and lighting, install new flooring, paint walls, move in new furniture and accessorize the space with decor and artwork. Then, housekeeping must come in to wipe the dust away and lay out fresh linens for the first guests who will occupy the room just days after the work is complete.  At this point in the renovations, multiple floors are at different stages of the process and a few are already complete. Each team, from the demolition crew to the movers, works on two floors at a time with a buffer floor to minimize noise for guests.  “It’s a fair bit of coordination to ensure that no reservations are staying around those particular dates,” said Morrison. “We have alerted all our guests that there will be noise between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and we run the crews from Sunday through Friday.” But when you’re 25 storeys in the air, bathtubs and debris can’t be thrown out a window into a waiting dumpster. So some work, Morrison said, must take place under the cover of night.  “The challenge is removing all that material while we are still operating a hotel,” he said. “The elevators are in use during the day for housekeeping, for linen delivery and all other staff functions. So at night, they’re being used to remove all that rubble and waste to be taken down to the bins in our loading dock. The whole idea is that guests shouldn’t know that it’s happening.” Another factor to consider is what to do with the old furniture.  “This is my 22nd hotel that I’ve either renovated or opened, and it is a common problem for all properties,” said Morrison. “What do you do with all this perfectly good furniture when you no longer need it?” With so many hotels gearing up for renovations, the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association began running a furniture rescue program to donate items back into the community.  Ball said most of the items that are still in good condition will be used in community, immigrant and supportive housing projects across the city. It’s a logistics challenge of its own, to remove and store the furniture for future use. To handle the volume of items about to come in, Ball said the association is working with the local branch of moving company AMJ Campbell.  “It’s an incredible advancement,” said Morrison. “There is no benefit to anybody having it go to waste and it’s always difficult to find people who will take it. Organizations are looking for furniture for new housing, they don’t have the budget for it, and we have furniture. And it’s not Ikea furniture. It is well-built and sturdy.”

What do guests really want?

When it comes to guest needs, Morrison said not much has changed.  The business and political guests that frequent the Kent Street Marriott are still looking for in-room desk space and high-speed wifi, and other tech items like the televisions that have already been updated. In the conference rooms, the main change will be upgrading audio-visual equipment to accommodate the uptick in virtual attendees since the pandemic.  The rest is cosmetic. For the design of its downtown hotel, Morrison said Marriott used curving blue and green patterns, as well as rounded brass fixtures, all inspired by Ottawa’s waterways.  When the competition is stiff, Morrison said the little details can make a big difference.  “Even under the Marriott umbrella and that spectrum of properties, members have their favourites,” he said. “They will go for the brand or style that they prefer, so there’s a competition within for guests. I like the curling analogy. We’re fierce competitors on the ice, but we’ll all sit around and have a beer afterwards. We’re here to be of service to others and to make them comfortable in their home away from home.”