North Bay's newest hotel preparing to open

Marriott is set to open a new hotel in North Bay this summer and it's called the Fairfield Inn and Suites.

The hotel is set to open in August but hotel staff told CTV News they're anticipating an earlier opening.

The 92 room hotel is hiring 25 positions.

"We're looking to onboard our team in the next couple weeks, get our team on-boarded and trained. We hosted a job fair, there were so many passionate people wanting to be a part of our team," said general manager Parth Dholakla.

Located right off highway 17 in the city's west end, the Fairfield is close to North Bay Regional Health Centre, Nipissing University, and Canadore College.

"Talking with our community partners from Nipissing, Canadore, North Bay Regional Health Centre, there's definitely some excitement. Along with just leisure travellers, there's definitely some excitement about our hotel," said Dholakla.

While North Bay is known for its nature and lake front cottages, Tourism North Bay believes hotels also attract more tourism.

"The message we try and get out there is that even though we have an abundance of nature, we do have nice urban hotels for people to stay at as well," said Tourism North Bay executive director Steve Dreany.

"It's not all cabins and bon fires, there is 100% a market for that as well, but for meetings, conventions, weddings, we do have the first class hotels as well," he added.

Dholakla says the hotel market is perfectly suited for North Bay, as Marriot continues to grow, so does North Bay.

"More and more businesses are re-locating to North Bay especially post pandemic, we have seen so much growth in the population and different sectors," he said

"This is a great fit to open a new hotel, as Marriott grows throughout the world, North Bay is no different."