One of these growth rates is not like the others

April 15, 2014

The Canadian Tourism Commission tracks international overnight inbound tourist visits. The growth rates between countries are markedly different. Overall overnight visits are up 3.1% year over year. Canada’s largest ‘customer’ the US us actually down 0.3%.

Some interesting stats on the overnight arrivals to Canada:

• US Visitors make up 2/3rds of the market but declined to 476,284 in Jan-14.
• The second largest country is now China with 26,762 visitors and increase of 63.7% year over year !
• UK dropped to third place, with 26,344 visitors, increasing at a 3% rate.
• All other countries are increasing or decreasing at a single digit rate.

Tourism spending in Canada totaled $79B in 2011 according to the Canadian Tourism Industry Association. These expenditures supported more than 600,000 jobs. The three territories garnered $147M in GDP activity due to tourism.

Commentary

Some tourist operators in the NWT have tapped into winter tourism for Japanese visitors to view the aurora borealis. Northern tourism operators have yet to tap into the Chinese tourism market—a pool of visitors that is almost three times as large.

Sources

• a)https://en-corporate.canada.travel/infographic/january-2014



• b)http://tiac.travel/_Library/documents/The_Canadian_Tourism_Industry_-_A_Special_Report_Web_Optimized_.pdf



• c)http://www.adventures.ca/gasnet/299-1.htm