VANCOUVER — Destination Canada’s (DC) latest Tourism Snapshot indicated continued tourism growth through August 2017. During the month, Canada welcomed more than 2.9 million visitors (up 4.9 per cent year-over-year).
In August, overnight arrivals from the U.S. rebounded, up six per cent, year-over-year. This performance was supported by robust increases in arrivals by air (8.7 per cent), automobile (3.4 per cent) and other modes of transport (13.2 per cent), across all provinces and territories except B.C. and Nova Scotia.
Year-to-date, overnight arrivals from DC’s core international markets were up 4.3 per cent. Strong U.S. performance in August provided momentum to improve growth over the first eight months of 2017 to 2.7 per cent.
Destination Canada’s Latin American markets (up 32.1 per cent) continued to show robust gains in overnight arrivals in August, contributing the largest net increase in overnight visitors among DC’s three overseas regions. Over the first eight months of 2017, tourist arrivals from Mexico and Brazil were up 53.1 per cent and 17.0 per cent, respectively.
Strong performances from France (up 11.7 per cent) and Germany (up 7.1 per cent) were largely offset by a contraction in overnight arrivals from the U.K. (down 9.2 per cent), despite it achieving its second-highest level of overnight arrivals for the month of August. Extraordinary gains in August 2016 (29 per cent) relative to August 2015 masked favourable gains in August 2017 (up 17 per cent over 2015).
Arrivals from Destination Canada’s Asia-Pacific region (up 4.3 per cent) showed mixed results for the month, impacted by a net decline in overnight arrivals to Canada via the United States by air, land or sea (down 5.3 per cent), which offset improvements in arrivals by air direct from overseas (up 10.9 per cent).
Year-over-year comparison of national hotel indicators also reveals a positive trend. Occupancy for the month increased by 2.8 percentage points, while RevPAR and ADR grew by 7.4 per cent and 11.2 per cent respectively.
The complete report is available here.
