Travel between Canada and other countries

All forms of travel to and from Canada declined marginally from May to June.

Travel to Canada fell to 2.3 million trips in June, down 1.3% from May and 12.7% from June 2007.

Travel from the United States fell 1.2% from May. Same-day car travel fell 0.4% in June to 761,000. Overnight travel by American residents to Canada declined 1.8% from May. Overnight car travel was relatively unchanged while overnight plane travel dropped 2.8%. The trend of overnight plane travel from the United States has been on a gradual decline since peaking approximately four years ago.

Residents of countries other than the United States made 395,000 overnight trips to Canada in June, down 1.8% from May. Although this was the fifth monthly decline for this type of traveller in the past year, there were still 3.6% more travellers than a year ago.

Travel from 9 of the top 12 overseas markets to Canada declined in June, led by China with a 6.8% drop. On the other hand, travel from the United Kingdom, Canada's largest overseas market, rose 2.4%, while travel was also up from Hong Kong (+2.0%) and the Netherlands (+2.5%).

Canadian residents took 4.4 million trips outside the country, a 0.8% drop from May. This marks the fifth monthly decline in the past year but the number of trips was still 8.8% higher than in June 2007.

Of these, 3.8 million were trips to the United States, down 0.9% from May. Same-day car travel to the United States edged down 0.5%, while overnight travel to the United States fell 1.2%.

Canadians took 659,000 trips to overseas countries in June, down 0.6% from May. The trend of travel by Canadian residents to overseas destinations has been steadily increasing over the last few years.

Available on CANSIM: tables 427-0001 to 427-0006.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 5005.

The June 2008 issue of International Travel, Advance Information, Vol. 24, no. 6 (66-001-PWE, free), is now available from the Publications module of our website.

For more information, contact Client Services (toll-free 1-800-307-3382; 613-951-9169; fax: 613-951-2909; tourism@statcan.gc.ca). To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Paul Durk (613-951-5859; paul.durk@statcan.gc.ca), Culture, Tourism and the Centre for Education Statistics.

Table(s).