Check-in at the Delta Toronto is now open.

Thursday marks the grand opening of the city’s newest hotel, a 46-storey, four-star venue at Lower Simcoe St. and Bremner Blvd., and a return to the provincial capital for the Canadian company, which ended a 37-year association with the Chelsea Hotel last summer.

To go dark in the country’s largest city for about 18 months was a bold move by the company, said Jennifer Worden, marketing and sales director for Delta Toronto. And returning with a flagship property was a no-brainer.

“We had to be here. There’s no way you couldn’t be,” she said.

Delta Hotels and Resorts, which began with a 62-room motel in Richmond, B.C., more than 50 years ago, now owns 41 locations across 10 provinces. Its newest property will house 567 oversized units, averaging 400 sq. ft., as well as multiple types of suites, including those equipped with kitchens for customers looking for extended stays.

While Delta uses its Toronto location, which will employ 300 workers, to rebrand the company as a “next-generation, premium four-star hotel,” its launch is also a sign of Toronto’s thriving tourism industry, experts say.

Room rates will be comparable to the city’s other four-star hotels and will vary by season, Worden said.

David Whitaker, president and CEO of Tourism Toronto, said the city could see record numbers for hotel occupancy, overnight visitors and room nights sold when the numbers come in at the end of next month.

Almost 88 per cent of the approximately 20,000 downtown Toronto hotel rooms were occupied in September, according to the most recent statistics from the province’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sports. That’s an increase of more than five percentage points over the same month last year.

The number of people coming to Canada from the United States for overnight stays has also risen slightly, up 0.3 per cent this year over last year.

American and international visitors stay twice as long as domestic visitors, making twice the impact on Toronto’s economy, Whitaker said.

It’s the evolution of a “new Toronto” that draws travellers, he said.

“Last year it was the aquarium, the year before that the Shangri-La and the (Ritz-Carlton). Queen’s Quay and Bremner Blvd. are being updated, and old is evolving into new, like the CN Tower’s EdgeWalk and Union Station.”

Travellers now understand what Toronto has to offer after years of marketing, agrees Terry Mundell, president and CEO of the Greater Toronto Hotel Association.

“These days, hotels have to cater to a variety of different clientele, and this property will cater to that. Families, young people, business people, whatever,” Mundell said.

Delta Toronto will be both a great leisure and corporate hotel, Mundell said, given it’s proximity to the convention centre. It’s also within walking distance to the Air Canada Centre and connected to PATH for travellers looking to escape any bad weather.

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The area, Worden said, gives even people from Toronto a new viewpoint on the city.

“Your whole life, if you’re from Toronto, you’ve had an idea of the city looking down on the CN Tower from Bloor St. This is a whole new perspective.”