VANCOUVER — Destination Canada’s (DC) latest Tourism Snapshot indicated continued tourism growth through September 2017. During the month, Canada welcomed more than 2.1 million visitors (up 2.9 per cent year-over-year).
Year-to-date as of September 2017, overnight arrivals from 10 of Destination Canada’s 11 international markets increased over the same period in 2016, led by a solid performance from Mexico (up 51.7 per cent) in particular. The exception was the U.K. (down 2.4 per cent), where outbound travel in general may have suffered in the midst of concerns for the economy ahead of Brexit.
Overnight arrivals from the U.S. were up 3.2 per cent year-over-year in September 2017, continuing the positive trend observed in August.
Destination Canada’s Latin American markets (up 33 per cent) continued to show robust gains in overnight arrivals in September. This trend was driven by the increased arrivals from Mexico (up 39.7 per cent), which following the implementation of the eTA in December 2016, was supported by ongoing air capacity expansion between Mexico and Canada. Changes in visa requirements also supported strong gains in visitors from Brazil (up 21.6 per cent).
DC’s Asia-Pacific region also noted positive year-over-year growth in September (up 3.3 per cent), despite another monthly downturn in arrivals from Japan in September (down 10.8 per cent).
Overnight arrivals from DC’s European markets were down marginally (down 0.5 per cent) for the month, due to the continued downward trend from the U.K. (down 6.7 per cent), which slightly outstripped solid growth from France (up 5.3 per cent) and Germany (up 5.2 per cent).
Year-over-year comparison of national hotel indicators also reveals a positive trend. Occupancy for the month increased by 1.9 percentage points, while RevPAR and ADR grew by four per cent and 6.7 per cent respectively.
The complete report is available here.
