Vancouver educators convert hotel to accommodate foreign student

Every year, tens of thousands of foreign students flood into high schools and universities in Vancouver and other major cities in Canada. A major challenge to them, however, is not the local customs or culture conflict, but how to find a place to live.

The Ministry of Education of British Columbia says there are roughly 113,000 international students in the province, with most of them in Vancouver. Helping them find places to live is a big issue both for the students as well as the schools and universities.

Under such a consideration, an education management firm in Vancouver has bought a real estate to house a rising number of international students who are struggling to find a home in one of the world's hottest housing markets.

The CIBT Education Group announced this week that it had purchased a 17-storey hotel in downtown Vancouver. The firm will soon convert much of the space into rental suites for 230 students coming from China, South Korea, India and elsewhere.

CBIT is spending 37 million CAD (29.6 million U.S. dollars) on the purchase and renovation. They plan to charge students between 800 and 1,200 CAD per bedroom.

CIBT Education Group CEO Toby Chu told Xinhua on Wednesday at his office that they plan to modify some of the units to be slightly smaller ones. Instead of 1,200 square feet for one bedroom, they would likely make it into two or three bedrooms.

As an operator of several schools, Chu said the firm was worried their incoming students wouldn't be able to find a place to live, so the company decided to deal with the rental vacancy problem directly.

"Vacancy rate was at 1.8% percent approximately year-and-a-half ago. As of September of 2014, it dropped down to 1 percent. As for downtown Vancouver it is actually down to half a percent. Even domestic students may have a problem, not to mention international students, who need to find a place to live prior to their arrival," Chu said.

Official figures show that international students spent 2.3 billion CAD (18.4 billion U.S. dollars) in B.C. last year on tuition, accommodation and other expenses, which supported almost 25,500 jobs in the province. As the Canadian government aims to attract more than 450,000 international students to Canada by 2022, more students are on the way to Canada.

He said CIBT has also bought two other Vancouver buildings recently with housing for another 500 students, and they plan to build more apartments to house another 5,000 students in the future.

"If they cannot find decent, safe, affordable housing, they might go to another country so it effects the industry and our own business at large," Chu added. Endi