Travel between Canada and other countries

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Travel by Canadian residents abroad rose 4.0% from March to 5.0 million trips in April. This advance was largely attributable to an increase in trips by Canadians to the United States.

The number of trips by Canadian residents to the United States rose 4.2% to 4.3 million trips in April. This was the highest monthly figure since March 1995.

Canadian residents took 2.4 million same-day car trips to the United States in April, up 3.9% from March. Same-day car travel has been on an upward trend since September 2010.

Canadian residents took 1.8 million overnight trips to the United States in April, up 4.5% from March. This advance was in large part attributable to an increase in overnight car travel, which rose 6.4% to 1.1 million trips. Overnight plane travel rose 2.2% from March to 622,000 trips in April.

Travel by Canadian residents to overseas countries reached 766,000 trips in April, up 3.1% from March.

In the other direction, the number of trips by overseas residents to Canada was up 0.8% to 1.9 million in April.

The number of trips taken by American residents to Canada increased 0.6% in April to 1.6 million.

Same-day car travel by American residents to Canada increased 1.5% from March to 556,000 trips. This was the first monthly increase since August 2010.

In addition, overnight car travel rose 2.5% from March to 545,000 trips in April. Overnight plane travel declined 3.6% to 284,000 trips.

The number of trips by overseas residents increased 1.9% to 369,000 in April. The number of trips taken by residents of Japan rebounded 27.3% in April following a 26.7% decline in March. Travel by residents of South Korea increased 15.2% while the number of trips by Mexican residents to Canada declined 14.3%.

Note: Monthly data are seasonally adjusted. All seasonally adjusted data have been revised back to January 2010. Revisions have been made to some non-seasonally adjusted series for each month of the third and fourth quarters of 2010.

NEXUS travel data (for both land and sea) are not included.

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

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 5005.

The April 2011 issue of International Travel, Advance Information, Vol. 27, no. 4 (66-001-P, free), is now available from the Key resource module of our website under Publications.

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 Frances Kremarik (613-951-4240; frances.kremarik@statcan.gc.ca), Tourism and the Centre for Education Statistics Division.