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Travel to Canada increased for the first time in seven months in November, with gains in travel from both the United States and overseas countries. Despite the increase, monthly figures on travel to Canada were still among the lowest in 25 years.
Same-day car travel from the United States, which had fallen every month since April, increased 1.5% to an estimated 1.1 million trips. (Unless otherwise specified, monthly data are seasonally adjusted.)
However, American travellers took fewer overnight trips (-0.6% to 1.1 million). While overnight car travel from the United States remained unchanged in November compared to October, the number of overnight trips by plane decreased 0.3%. Travel by other modes of transportation fell 4.2%.
Still, overall travel from the United States edged up 0.6% to 2.3 million trips after posting the lowest level on record in October.
Travel from overseas countries climbed to its highest level since March, up 2.1% to 379,000. The increase came despite a 0.8% drop in the number of trips from Canada's largest overseas market, the United Kingdom, which slipped to 75,000. Among Canada's top-12 most important overseas markets, the largest gains were observed in travel from South Korea (+9.5%) and India (+8.2%).
In the opposite direction, record travel to overseas countries and increases in both same-day and overnight travel to the United States pushed travel abroad to its highest level since January 2001.
Increased travel overseas has been the trend in 2006, with the previous 10 months being the highest since record keeping started in 1972. Canadians took 584,000 trips overseas in November, up 1.3% from October.
Same-day car travel to the United States climbed to a six-month high in November, up 3.1% to 2.0 million trips.
Canadians also took 1.4 million overnight trips to the United States, up 3.7% from October and the highest level in over 13 years. Overnight car and plane travel to the United States were up 3.7% and 1.9% respectively, while overnight travel by other means jumped 12.5%.
While car travel between Canada and the United States was up in November, the unfavourable weather in British Columbia had a negative impact on car travel between that province and the United States. High winds and heavy precipitation forced the cancellation of ferry services, impeded traffic and caused power outages throughout southern British Columbia and Vancouver Island. As a result, cross-border car traffic to and from British Columbia were down 10.4% and 4.4% respectively.
The Canadian dollar slipped to 88.0 US cents in November, down 0.7% from October. It also fell compared to other major international currencies such as the British pound sterling, the euro and the Japanese yen.
Available on CANSIM: tables 427-0001 to 427-0006.
Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 5005.
The November 2006 issue of International Travel, Advance Information, Vol. 22, no. 11 (66-001-PIE, free) is now available from the Publications module of our website.
For general information, contact Client Services (toll-free 1-800-307-3382; 613-951-9169; fax: 613-951-2909; cult.tourstats@statcan.gc.ca). To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Eric Desjardins (613-951-1781; eric.desjardins@statcan.gc.ca), Culture, Tourism and the Centre for Education Statistics.
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