Toronto businesses are already getting a nice boost from the Pan Am Games, and it’s only expected to get better as the event continues, says a new Moneris Solutions Corp. report.

Despite some grumblings that the Games were not attracting as much tourism as first expected, downtown Toronto hotels and bars were hopping the weekend the Pan Am Games kicked off, says the report obtained by The Star.

In the area between Bloor St. and Harbourfront, and from Jarvis St. to Bathurst St., hotels enjoyed a 58.47 per cent jump in guest spending from July 10 to 12, the report says.

Meanwhile, Moneris found that bars saw a 19.76 per cent jump in sales compared to the previous weekend, which followed Canada Day.

“It shows that world-class events are a real draw for Toronto businesses,” said Rob Cameron, Moneris’ chief product and marketing officer.

He said it bodes well that on the opening weekend of the Pan Am Games, overall consumer spending was up 8.42 per cent over the same weekend in 2014, and nearly 4 per cent over the previous weekend (July 3 to 5).

“It’s a really good needle move,” said Cameron.

“You usually see a ramp-up in spending as an event like this goes on, so to get a jumping off point this high is a really good sign,” he noted, adding it will only increase as the Games continue until July 26.

An interesting wrinkle Moneris found was that hotel spending on foreign credit cards was up, but that it still accounted for a smaller share of total hotel spending than the previous weekend.

This partly suggests that domestic rather than foreign tourists made up a good chunk of the hotel guests on the first weekend, and also that longer-stay visitors have not yet checked out, said Cameron.

Spending on foreign cards was 23.54 per cent higher than the same weekend in 2014, and 6.1 per cent more than the previous weekend, the study shows.

Overall, downtown Toronto restaurant revenues on the first weekend were 11 per cent higher than the previous weekend, while entertainment spending — which includes tourist attractions (museums, aquariums), theatres and movie theatres, other sports, bowling alleys and golf courses — rose 12.29 per cent, says the report.

On the day of opening ceremonies at Rogers Centre, businesses in the area (those with postal codes beginning with M5V and M5J) saw a nice uptick at the till, Moneris found.

Overall spending was 11.93 per cent higher than the same day, July 10, in 2014, and 5.8 per cent higher than a week earlier, the data revealed.

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Compared to the previous Friday, spending on hotel rooms in the area soared 118.6 per cent on the night of the ceremony, restaurant spending jumped 21.5 per cent and entertainment spending rose 7.16 per cent higher, the report shows.

Foreign credit card spending in the Rogers Centre area was 37.9 per cent higher than the same day last year, and 14 per cent higher than the previous Friday, it found.

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