Travel to Canada down over past year: StatsCan
Significantly fewer people travelled to Canada at the start of summer compared with last year, while more Canadians packed their bags for trips abroad over the same period, said a report released Monday by Statistics Canada.
Underlining a trend that has struck the Canadian tourism industry over the past months, the number of trips made by foreigners to Canada in June was down 12.7 per cent from the same period a year ago, the report said.
The 2.3 million voyages foreigners took to Canada in June was also down 1.3 per cent from May.
Trips to Canada from the United States in June were down 1.2 per cent from May. Travel from nine of the 12 top overseas markets also fell in June, with travellers coming from China leading the way, taking 6.8 per cent fewer trips than they did in May.
Only travellers from the United Kingdom (+2.4 per cent,), Hong Kong (+2.0 per cent) and the Netherlands (+2.5 per cent) made more trips to Canada in June than in May.
Traffic the other way, while in decline for the fifth month in a row this year, is up since a year ago. Canadians took 4.4 million trips abroad in June, up 8.8 per cent since June 2007, the report said.
Month to month, however, Canadian trips abroad fell 0.8 per cent in June. Canadians' travel to the U.S. in June was off 0.9 per cent since May, down to 3.8 million trips.
The generally lower cross-border travel comes amid increased economic uncertainty around the world, major layoff and shutdown announcements in both the U.S. and Canadian manufacturing sectors, and higher prices for gasoline and jet fuel.
With files from the Canadian Press
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