Visitors to Canada from the United States reached their highest rate since 2007, with British Columbia among the benefactors of this influx, according to new figures from Statistics Canada.
Year-to-date, the number of visitors from the United States was up 2.2 per cent in June 2019, reaching the highest level for the first six months of the year since 2007.
One likely reason for the rise is the weak Canadian dollar, which grants American visitors greater purchasing power.
“The year-over-year decline in travel from Canada to the United States coincided with an increase in the value of the U.S. dollar,” Statistics Canada said in its analysis. “The value of the U.S. dollar, a factor known to influence cross-border travel, rose from CAN $1.31 year over year to CAN $1.33 in June 2019.”
Looking at specific provinces, British Columbia recorded an 11.3 per cent increase in arrivals from the United States by plane in June 2019, the biggest in Canada.
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By comparison, the number of Canadians crossing the border dropped almost three per cent in June 2019 compared to the same period last year.
But if Americans are trying to take advantage of their stronger dollar, other foreigners are staying away from Canada, as the number of travellers from overseas countries has been declining.
Compared to May 2019, overall travel numbers were down 2.5 per cent, with travel from Asia down 4.9 per cent thanks to large drops in visitors from Japan (down 10.4 per cent), South Korea (down 8.1 per cent) and India (down 6.5 per cent). Travel from Europe also dropped, as a higher number of French and German travels failed to compensate for a decline in visitors from the United Kingdom, Canada’s largest source market for overseas travellers.
Looking the other way, the number of Canadians travelling overseas (6.9 million), year to date, was up 3.3 in June 2019.
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