Canada’s Travel Industry Needs a Big Leg Up, Experts Say

First, the good news: the number of overnight visits made by Americans to Canada jumped by 2.5 percent to 3.5 million in the second quarter of this year.

Now the bad news: that is only a slight improvement over the first quarter figure of 3.4 million visits –the lowest in eight years. The seasonally adjusted figures were contained in Statistics Canada´s report on the country´s international travel account released this week.

While any increase in the number of American visitors is welcome news, it should be noted that both travel industry analysts and Stats Can cautioned that it would be premature to say this represents an end to years of decline.

In the past eight years, the number of same-day car visits to Canada by Americans have dropped by almost one half and the number of overall visits is down by 30 percent.

And it isn´t only Americans who are no longer visiting Canada. The number of foreign visitors, excluding Americans, making an overnight visit to Canada fell by 4 percent in the first quarter. In terms of international arrivals, in 2005 Canada ranked 12th in the world, down from the seventh spot it held four years ago.

Some of that must be blamed on Canada´s failure to promote itself at a time when other nations are aggressively going after tourists. The Canadian Tourism Commission, the Crown corporation responsible for marketing the country, has seen its budget decrease by almost a quarter in the past four years.

Meanwhile, according to a United Nation study, governments worldwide increased spending on tourism promotion by 11 percent in 2005 compared with a year earlier.

The tourism industry employs more than half a million Canadians and is worth $62.7 billion to the nation. Any money spent on selling Canada to the rest of the world, and in particular our American cousins, as a safe, tourist-friendly destination will surely pay dividends.