Release date: August 18, 2025
Catalogue number: 45200003
ISSN: 2025007
Listen to "Eh Sayers" on:
Calllllll-i-forrrrr-nia... here we come?
If you've changed your plans to visit the US recently, you're not alone. Nowadays, Canadians are more likely to be singing along to "Bobcaygeon" than "Sweet Home Alabama."
Today, we're sitting down with Jane Lin, of the Tourism Statistics Program at Statistics Canada, to dig into StatCan's tourism data and talk about how travel is different these days.
Host
Tegan Bridge
Guest
Jane Lin
Listen to audio
Eh Sayers Episode 27 - Canadians Just Aren't California Dreamin' These Days - Transcript
Transcript
Tegan: Welcome to Eh Sayers, a podcast from Statistics Canada, where we meet the people behind the data and explore the stories behind the numbers. I'm your host, Tegan Bridge.
Did you see that viral tourism ad for the Eastern Townships in Quebec? A man walks up to the check-in counter in a hotel, and the woman behind the desk greets him in French. The man apologizes that he doesn't speak French and is just visiting. The clerk welcomes him in English and asks where he's visiting from. He leans in and whispers, "I'm American." The woman responds by hitting a button under the desk, which is suggestive of a silent alarm or a panic button in a bank, but the ad subverts expectations. The button unlocks a door and the woman comes out from behind the counter and gives the man a great big hug. There's a moment where the man looks startled, then confused, then he smiles and returns the hug. Text on the screen appears, saying, "Come hug it out in the Eastern Townships."
It's a cute ad, for sure, but Canadians we're renowned for our friendliness. Why are tourism boards feeling the need to reassure American travellers that we don't bite, and that they're welcome here.
If you heard our last episode on the recent challenges facing the Canadian economy and the conflict with our Southern neighbours, you heard our guest Guy Gellatly say…
Guy: the travel numbers, I think, you know, if there's one area that we've got a lot of requests for, it's that travel data,
Tegan: Today, we're digging into those data. We'll start by setting the scene. The US is, of course, geographically speaking, our closest neighbour. The CBSA, which stands for Canada Border Services Agency, manages 117 land-border crossings. But you can also travel between the countries by air or water. There's plenty for Canadians to see and do in the US, and lots for American visitors to Canada'as well.
But for Canadians, how big a deal is travel to the US?
Jane: In general, for example, in 2024, Canadian return trips to the US totaled about 39 million, and it represented 75% of all Canadian resident travel abroad.
Tegan: Time to introduce today's expert!
Jane: Hi there, I'm Jane Lin. I'm with the Tourism Statistics Program at Statistics Canada.
Tegan: So, normal times, 75% of Canadian resident travel abroad is trips to the US. Makes sense. But things are a bit different nowadays.
Jane: Canadian travel to the US has declined significantly. Some of the declines are comparable to what we've seen after the September 11th attacks or after—at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.
Tegan: The number of Canadian-resident return trips from the United States in May was down 32% from May 2024.
We talk a lot about "return trips" today. We're using data from the CBSA, counting Canadians returning to Canada from the US. That's all that means!
Jane: So it's dropped off significantly and you see that a lot in the auto, not so much with the air, and mainly because with the auto it's less expensive. And it takes less planning to change your plans for same day travel to the US. And we've seen a lot of those drop offs in some of those border towns that—between Canada and US—for example Fort Erie, Windsor. Here in the Pacific region: Douglas, Pacific Highway. So it's, it's, it's been quite dramatic.
Tegan: And are Canadians traveling less generally or is this specifically the trips to the US that have decreased?
Jane: We've been seeing an increase in Canadian return trips from overseas. But there is an element that we need in order to gain the whole picture. Domestic travel is the one that's missing. And we will see that in August when we have the National Travel Survey released.
We see outbound, so Canadian residents traveling outside Canada. We have inbound, so we have non-residents entering Canada, but we are eager, very eager to see that domestic travel when it comes out in the National Travel Survey in August.
Tegan: So right now we know there are fewer Canadians making trips to the US. They are making more international trips, just not to the US. And the real final missing puzzle piece that we'll get in August is how many Canadians are traveling within Canada, visiting other provinces and seeing the local sites.
Jane: Exactly. It's the question is almost like, is the pie growing bigger? Has it stayed the same or has it shrunk?
Tegan: What do we know about Americans travelling to Canada? Are they also visiting Canada less than they were before?
Jane: It's really neat because the preliminary data that comes from CBSA, we release it usually around the tenth of each month. It's called the leading indicator of international arrivals, and it's one of the fastest programs, like data releases, that we have at Statistics Canada outside LFS, the Labour Force Survey. So it's really amazing that by the tenth of July, we'll have released the June data, so it's very, very fast.
And we've seen that, to your question, Tegan, there has been a decline in US residents travelling to Canada as well. So we've been seeing that it hasn't been as dramatic as the Canadian return.
Tegan: So I understand that your data is based on administrative data, which is information collected by CBSA at the border, and there are benefits as well as limitations to that data. One of which is that you can't ask people survey questions. And, of course, it's even harder, of course, to get answers from people who might have traveled but chose not to.
How much do you wish you could get answers to the "why" questions?
Jane: That's a great question, Tegan. So yes, it's true administrative data is great because it reduces the response burden on our respondents, and busy Canadians who are travelling through airports or through land borders… It's really great because it reduces that response burden and it uses an existing system, like at CBSA. It also reduces cost for the agency as well, so we could provide the best value for Canadians.
Yes, it's true, like limitations that we wish that we could get to those "why" questions. The administrative data provides us the counts, like the number of travellers. But we don't know what activities they engage in or the spending.
But we do have two other surveys that are coming out at the end of August. One is called the Visitor Travel Survey, and the other one is called the National Travel Survey.
The Visitor travel survey is for folks who are coming from overseas, so outside of the US and from the US as well. So we'll have information on who is coming, how much they're spending, how long they're staying, where they're travelling to, and all of those data pieces get fed into the system of national accounts and each quarter they have a release that talks about like how much tourism is worth in terms of GDP.
The National Travel Survey is Canadians traveling abroad. And it does actually ask those "why" questions. Main trip purpose, for example, is it for business? Is it for pleasure? If it's personal reasons? Are folks going to the US or abroad for like home shows? Visit family, friends, recreation holidays? And it's great because we can even see things like same day travel, the reasons why they're traveling. Is it for a shopping purpose, for example? And we can actually see trip activities as well, whether they go hiking, camping, fishing, to museums. So we're very eager to see that data because it gets to what we talked about earlier in that domestic travel piece. So Canadians traveling within Canada. It's very interesting because the Canada Strong Pass that was announced last month, I think, was set out to encourage more domestic travel within Canada. So we'll keep an eye out on that.
Tegan: And why do these findings matter? Why should the average Canadian care about this?
Jane: It's really important to put data into the hands of users, whether that's like government, industry, not-for-profit, or citizens.
And we hear a lot of rhetoric, perhaps at the dinner table, we go to parties, you know, we hear people talking. And so these are the official statistics. So it's real evidence in terms of planning. And so that way, governments are able to use evidence to base their decisions on, you know, we hear of like evidence-based decision making rather than like decision-based evidence making perhaps.
Tegan: Yeah. This isn't based on vibes. This is cold, hard data.
Jane: That's exactly it. It's based on cold, hard data. And I think with the lack of… like what's happening, we have been receiving many more calls from US media outlets, large and small, and they're very interested in those cross border figures.
So they're trying to get a better handle on what's happening in terms of the business communities. For example, like duty free shops who see a drop in sales or for shoppers and for consumers not going to the US means less sales and less purchases. For example, accommodation spending on accommodations for those US states means also fewer sales dollars for them as well. And fewer sales dollars could turn into like less money for structural infrastructure, hospitals, schools, you name it.
Tegan: Gotcha. Well, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your expertise.
Jane: Thank you for having me today.
Tegan: You've been listening to Eh Sayers. Thank you to our guest, Jane Lin. If you would like to learn more about travel and tourism, either between Canada and the US or more broadly, you can find the Travel and Tourism Statistics page on the StatCan website. The link is in the shownotes.
You can subscribe to this show wherever you get your podcasts. There, you can also find the French version of our show, called Hé-coutez bien! If you liked this show, please rate, review, and subscribe. And thanks for listening!