VANCOUVER — Destination Canada’s (DC) latest Tourism Snapshot indicates continued tourism growth through August 2018, with year-to-date overnight arrivals reaching a record high at 14.8 million — surpassing the previous peak established in 2001 to.
Over the summer-2018 period (June to August), Canada welcomed more than 8.9-million overnight visitors, represents Canada’s third-best summer for international arrivals, after 2001 and 2002. Summer 2018 was also the best summer ever for long-haul (non-U.S.) arrivals to Canada (2.6-million visitors).
During the month of August, Canada welcomed approximately 3.1-million visitors (up 3.4 per cent year-over-year) and experienced a 2.9-per-cent increase in arrivals from DC’s 10 international markets. However, arrivals from DC’s long-haul markets fell 4.5 per cent for the month.
Gains from Mexico (18.9 per cent), India (1.9 per cent) and France (one per cent) were outpaced by severe declines from Japan and South Korea, as well as decreases from China, the U.K. and Australia. These declines are largely to ongoing significant declines in air arrivals via the U.S. across all markets in August.
Overnight arrivals from China were down six per cent in August following a 7.8-per-cent drop in the value of the Chinese Yuan against the CAD since mid-June and lower consumption patterns among Chinese consumers in response to rising prices and uncertainties linked to the economic slowdown in China and the trade dispute with the U.S.
Year-over-year comparison of national hotel indicators also revealed a positive trend. Occupancy for the month increased by 0.1 percentage points, while RevPAR and ADR grew by 4.6 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively.
The complete report is available here.