VANCOUVER — Destination Canada’s (DC) latest Tourism Snapshot shows continued tourism growth for May 2019, with 1.91-million international overnight arrivals (up 7.6 per cent), resulting in year-to-date (YTD) growth of 5.3 per cent.
Four of DC’s target markets achieved new monthly-arrivals peaks for May, including Mexico (up 28.1 per cent), India (up 26.8 per cent), France (up 8.3 per cent) and Australia (up five per cent).
With the start the school summer-vacation period in India, May 2019 overnight arrivals from the country reached 47,000 — propelling India to rank fourth among DC’s long-haul markets in May 2019 and fifth YTD in total arrivals.
Canada welcomed 1.27-million overnight visitors from the U.S. in May 2019 — up 6.3-per-cent compared to 2018 — continuing the positive trend observed in April. This strong performance is attributed to a fifth consecutive month of increased U.S. air arrivals (up 20.9 per cent), as well as growing U.S. auto arrivals (up 4.5 per cent). The continued growth in U.S. air arrivals so far in 2019 was supported by the ongoing expansion of air capacity between Canada and the U.S. — up three per cent for May and 4.9 per cent YTD.
The report notes that amid a slowing economic outlook and global trade-tension jitters, Chinese travel agencies reported a decline in outbound travel from Beijing (down 28.1 per cent) over the first quarter of 2019 and from Shanghai (down 3.2 per cent) over the first two months of 2019. This trend was reflected in decreased overnight arrivals to Canada, which dipped 4.7 per cent for May and 0.7 per cent YTD.
A year-over-year comparison of national hotel indicators were mixed, with occupancy for the month falling 0.5 percentage points. RevPAR and ADR were both up, climbing 2.7 per cent and 1.9 per cent, respectively.
The complete report is available here.
