‘Surrey does not have enough hotels, especially for sports’

This spring Surrey will welcome more than 9,000 athletes to eight sports tournaments for soccer, badminton, gymnastics, diving, ultimate frisbee, water polo and more.

Collectively, the events will see nearly 2,000 hotel nights booked and generate an economic boost of close to $8 million.

These numbers are trumpeted by Surrey sports tourism officials, but one problem is that not all athletes and their families are able to stay at the city’s 1,554 hotel/motel rooms, because sometimes there’s just not enough room in the inns.

For sports tourism needs, Surrey lacks hotels, 14 of which stand today along with four motels, according to numbers sent by Xenia Slosarcik, director of business development with Surrey Hotel and Motel Association.

Those 1,554 rooms include 189 at the new Homewood Suites by Hilton Surrey, opened March 30 in the city’s Health & Technology District, just north of Surrey Memorial Hospital.

Such hotel openings are good news for Sarb Lidder, executive director of Surrey FC soccer club, which in March hosted the massive annual Surrey Mayor’s Cup tournament for 482 youth teams in multiple divisions.

“For the Mayor’s Cup we had potentially almost 1,500 room nights, and only 411 of those were spent in Surrey,” Lidder told the Now-Leader.

“We had a significant number of teams come here from different places, and we were challenged to find hotels in Surrey. A lot of people went to Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, other cities. The teams, they tell us they want to come to Surrey, play in Surrey and stay in Surrey, but can’t.”

Mayor Brenda Locke agrees that Surrey needs additional hotel rooms to meet demand, especially during larger sports tournaments, and says more will be built.

“We are starting to see hotels coming forward,” she noted. “I’ve been talking with people who build hotels and there’s an interest like never before — not just for sports tourism, but for other things in our city. There is a real need, no question about it, because these events and tournaments, we want them to come to Surrey.”

Launched in 2015, Surrey’s Sport Tourism Grant Program has attracted events by helping to offset costs for sports organizations. In 2025, grants were given for 45 events, generating an estimated $32 million in economic impact in the city.

Ange Chew, executive director of Discover Surrey destination marketing organization, said Surrey not having enough hotels and hotel rooms is a challenge, “and it’s always been a challenge,” she said.

“The new Homewood Suites by Hilton just opened, so that’s very encouraging now. But for this size of a city, Surrey does not have enough hotels or hotel rooms, especially for sports,” Chew underlined.

Surrey’s hotel occupancy rate dropped last year, she noted, due to a strike at the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford property and other factors.

“Our hotel partners also look at other side, like, ‘We’re not 100 per cent full 100 per cent of the time, so will new hotels steal from my share of the market?’ It’s a balance of what to develop and where to develop.

“Another thing is, we don’t have enough conference space,” Chew added. “We have the ability to host 500 delegates and less in Surrey currently. That’s not enough. A lot of events have outgrown the Agriplex (in Cloverdale), so we need that next size up, indoor space, especially in winter. The new downtown arena planned, there needs to be multi-use space (for) trade shows and conferences.”

Surrey FC will host U15 national club championships at Newton Athletic Park this October, bringing dozens of soccer teams from across Canada.

“We have enough hotel rooms for that,” Lidder confirmed. “We have all the teams staying at the Sheraton (in Guildford) along with some of the key personnel from Canada Soccer, and then the referees and team officials will stay at the Civic Hotel.”

Sports tournaments on Surrey’s spring 2026 calendar include Knockout Events’ Sikh Heritage Month Canada Cup (combat sports, April 24 at Empress Palace Ballroom), Water Polo Canada’s 16U Nationals (May 1-3 at Guildford Recreation Centre), White Rock Divers-hosted Bev Boys Invitational (May 9-10 at Grandview Heights Aquatics Centre), Coastal FC’s Spring Classic soccer tournament (May 16-18 at South Surrey Athletic Park) and BC School Sports-hosted AA/AAA ultimate disc sport provincials (May 25-26 at Newton Athletic Park).