TRANSPORT AND TOURIST TRAVEL

A brief, primarily graphic, description of the nature of international tourist travel is presented here, through statistics published by the Tourism Division of Statistics Canada, obtained from intercept surveys by Statistics Canada at border crossings, international airports and ports.

Overview

In 1995 there were 97 million international trips to or from Canada (Figure To-1), including:

• 52.2 million trips by Canadians to the US;
• 37.3 million trips by Americans to Canada;
• 3.5 million trips by Canadians to countries other than the US; and
• 4.33 million trips by non-US visitors to Canada.

Total trips rose rapidly in the late 1980s to a peak in 1991, then declined sharply, largely through changes in trips by Canadians to the US.

In 1995, of the 89.5 million transborder trips (Figure To-2), there were:

• 37.5 million same-day trips by Canadians to the US,
• 14.7 million overnight trips by Canadians to the US,
• 24.3 million same-day trips by Americans to Canada, and
• 13.0 million overnight trips by Americans to Canada.

The fluctuations during the last decade stemmed primarily from changes in same-day trips by Canadians to the US, including the "cross-border shopping" peak of the early 1990s.

• Of the 14.7 million overnight trips by Canadians to the US in 1995, 9.7 million were by car, 3.8 million by air, and 650,000 by bus ( Figure To-3).
• The fluctuations during the last decade have been largely in car trips.
• Of the 13 million overnight trips by Americans to Canada in 1995, 8.7 million were by car, 2.8 million by air, and 750,000 by bus ( Figure To-4).
• The number of those trips has been much more stable in the last decade than that of trips by Canadians to the US.
• Figure To-5 shows that travel between Canada and countries other than the US more than doubled between 1979 and 1995.
• Throughout that period, there were 15-20 per cent more non-US visitors to Canada than there were trips by Canadians to countries other than the US.
• The origin of overnight visitors to Canada from countries other than the US in 1995 included UK -705,000; France - 476,000; Germany - 463,000; and Japan - 649,000 ( Figure To-6).
• The total doubled between 1986 and 1995, and more than tripled for visits from Japan and France.
• Of visitors to Canada from countries other than the US, a large proportion - 52 per cent in 1995 - arrive via the US rather than directly ( Figure To-7).
• In 1995, of overnight trips to Canada from countries other than the US, 53 per cent were for pleasure, 27 per cent for business, and 15 per cent for visits to friends or relatives ( Figure To-8).
• The increase since 1990 was largely in pleasure trips.
• Of the 3.9 million visitors from countries other than the US in 1995, about 50 per cent made an overnight visit to Ontario, about 28 per cent to Quebec, and about 36 per cent to British Columbia ( Figure To-9; note that some visited more than one province or region).
• Visitors from Asia stopped mostly in Ontario or the Western provinces; visitors from France mostly in Quebec or Ontario.
• Of Canadians travelling to countries other than the US in 1995, about 46 per cent travelled to Europe, about 20 per cent to the Caribbean or Bermuda, and about nine per cent to Asia (Figure To-10).
• Such overseas travel by Canadians increased by 56 per cent between 1986 and 1995, with trips to Asian destinations and cruise trips more than doubling.
• Of those trips by Canadians to countries other than the US in 1995, about 58 per cent were for pleasure, another 19 per cent for visits to friends or relatives, and 17 per cent for business (Figure To-11).
• The number of business trips has grown fastest, more than doubling between 1986 and 1995.
• Canadians have spent more abroad than foreigners have spent in Canada since the early 1970s (Figure To-12).
• This travel account deficit widened to $6.4 billion in 1992, fuelled temporarily by an increase in cross-border shopping, but then subsided to about $3 billion in 1995.