As tickets for Aerosmith's Charlottetown concert go on sale Tuesday morning, there isn't a hotel room to be had in the city.
'Things have been booked for a month.'— Liberal MLA Carolyn Bertram
The concert promoter is expecting to sell 30,000 tickets for the July 21 concert, but there are only about 2,000 hotel rooms in Charlottetown. The shortage of places to stay has Liberal tourism critic Carolyn Bertram wondering why the province is paying $350,000 to bring in a mega-concert at the height of tourist season.
"It's great to have the concert coming to Prince Edward Island. We're not disagreeing with that," said Bertram.
"However, this is peak season. I called the 1-800 number. They stated to me that things have been booked; things have been booked for a month."
A call to the Best Western hotel in Charlottetown reveals a waiting list of more than 30 people looking for a room on the weekend of the concert.
Still rooms out of town
As of Monday, rooms were still available for that weekend outside of Charlottetown, but Bertram said she wouldn't have known that based on the conversation she had with the tourism information office.
"All I was told was visit the website. Visit the website. Yes, we do live in an information age but the reality is not everyone has internet," she said.
"If people are making that first step well then let's try to do our very best to keep them online at that time. And ensure they can get accommodations on that July 21 weekend."
Aerosmith fan club members can buy concert tickets on the Aerosmith website Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. AT.
