VANCOUVER — Destination Canada’s (DC) latest Tourism Snapshot indicates a slight downturn in international tourist arrivals to Canada for February 2019, down 1.5 per cent from the record-setting arrivals recorded in February 2018.
Due to the timing of the Chinese New Year travel period this year — which bolstered arrivals from China in January (up 31.6 per cent) — overnight arrivals from China saw a steep, but expected, drop of 21.3 per cent year over year.
February arrivals from DC’s Asia-Pacific markets (down 9.6 per cent) were pulled down by results from China, as well as the continued downward trend from Japan (down 8.6 per cent). These results outweighed increased arrivals from India and Australia, which were up 21.8 per cent and 7.3 per cent respectively.
Continued pessimism in Europe saw another month of declines from the U.K. and Germany — down 5.2 per cent and 12 per cent respectively — while arrivals from France continued to grow (up 3.5 per cent). In fact, February’s 36,475 arrivals from France marked a new record and saw the country become DC’s leading European market.
Arrivals from Mexico continued their upward trend in February, reaching a record high of 24,386 visitors for the month (a 27.2 per cent increase).
While overall February 2019 arrivals from the U.S. fell just below February 2018 (down 0.5 per cent), U.S. air arrivals gained momentum for a second consecutive month (up 6.8 per cent; 4.3 per cent YTD).
Year-over-year comparison of national hotel indicators also revealed positive results. Occupancy for the month rose 0.5 percentage points, while RevPAR and ADR grew by 1.3 per cent and 42.2 per cent, respectively.
The complete report is available here.
