Tourism Industry in Canada

The tourism industry in Canada is strong with Canadian arrivals increasing by 8% and domestic travel increasing by 12%. The amount of international travellers from India, China and Brazil is expanding and Canadian citizens also appear to have positive travel expectations.  On the other hand, the number of U.S. travellers has declined over the last 10 years.

Travel is affected by many factors, one of them being exchange rates. The Canadian dollar has been gaining strength and this seems to fall in line with the decline of U.S. travellers. It appears that the Canadian dollar has an elastic demand as U.S. travel is fairly responsive to a change in price.

The exchange rates seem to have less of an effect on other international travel.

As for Canadians own travel expectations, long term travel within Canada is slightly down but is up for various other locations.
 

It is interesting to note that while long term travel expectations within Canada is down, short term actually shows an increase in travel in domestic travel.

One potential reason that short term domestic travel for Canadians may be up is because of the economy’s current instability. People are unwilling or unable to spend large amounts on international travel and instead choose budget friendly vacations within Canada.

The overall current state of the tourism industry in Canada is healthy and appears to be improving. 

This industry has an elastic demand as there are many other available substitutes. There are thousands upon thousands of travel destinations to suite every preference and budget. Consumers have the ability to choose from a wide variety of options when making their travel choices.

Deloitte, Ipsos & TIAC, Navigate,
http://tiac.travel/_Library/documents/navigate_winter2011-12.pdf
site accessed on October 6, 2012