Canadians travel more, spend more to beat winter chill

Canadian residents made more than seven million trips involving stays of one or more nights outside the country in the first quarter of 2008.(CBC)

Canadians are travelling and spending more to get out of the cold, with Florida still their favourite U.S. destination, Statistics Canada says.

Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic round out the top four, the federal agency reported Wednesday.

Canadian residents took about 4.5 million trips to the United States involving stays of one or more nights in the first three months of 2008, the report said.

That total — 21.5 per cent more than in the first three months of 2007 — marks the fifth consecutive first-quarter increase, the agency said. The travellers spent about $3.8 billion in the United States, 23.3 per cent more than a year earlier.

About 1.3 million of the trips were to Florida, an increase of 24.6 per cent. Spending in Florida approached $1.3 billion, up 26 per cent.

Farther afield, Canadian residents made nearly 2.8 million overnight trips to other countries, an increase of 12 per cent from a year earlier, continuing an upward trend seen over the last five years.

The travellers spent $3.5 billion on those trips, an increase of 13.1 per cent and the highest first-quarter figure on record.

Overnight visits to Mexico rose 7.2 per cent to nearly 590,000. Visits to Cuba soared 35.4 per cent to 505,000, while visits to the Dominican Republic rose 7.8 per cent to 405,000.

But foreigners showed limited enthusiasm for spending time in Canada in January, February and March.

U.S. residents took just over 1.7 million overnight trips to Canada in the three months, down 3.6 per cent, while tourists from overseas took 677,000 such trips, up 2.2 per cent.

Travel deficit rises sharply

Also Wednesday, Statistics Canada reported that Canada's travel deficit with the rest of the world approached $3.2 billion in the second quarter of 2008, an increase of 57.2 per cent from a year earlier.

The deficit, which peaked at $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, is the difference between spending by Canadian residents abroad and spending by foreigners in the country.

The deficit with the United States in the second quarter was $2.2 billion, up 82.5 per cent from a year earlier. The deficit with overseas countries hit a new high of $974 million, up 20 per cent .

The federal agency said spending by Canadians overseas has increased 134.7 per cent since the fourth quarter of 1996, the last time an overseas travel surplus was recorded.

The increase dwarfed a 60.8 per cent rise in spending by visitors from overseas countries in Canada in the same span.

Widened Deficit!!

Travel to and from Canada inches up: StatsCan

Travel to Canada down over past year: StatsCan

Canadians spending their tourism dollars at home