Travel between Canada and other countries

View the most recent version.

Canadian residents made 4.9 million trips abroad in October, down 0.3% from September. The decline was attributable to a decrease in travel from Canada to countries other than the United States.

Canadian residents made 766,000 trips to overseas countries in October, down 2.1% from the previous month.

Canadian residents made 4.2 million trips to the United States in October, about the same number of trips made in September.

However, overnight travel by Canadian residents to the United States was down 1.6% from September to 1.7 million trips in October. This was the third consecutive monthly decline.

In October, overnight car travel by Canadian residents to the United States was down 1.1% compared with the previous month, while overnight plane travel decreased 2.7%.

In contrast, Canadians took 2.4 million same-day car trips to the United States in October, up 1.2% from September.

In the other direction, travel by residents from abroad to Canada was essentially unchanged compared with September, at about 2.0 million trips in October.

American residents made 1.6 million trips in October, a slight increase of 0.2% from September. Overnight travel by Americans to Canada increased 0.9% to 971,000 trips. Overnight car travel was up 0.3% to 557,000 trips, while overnight plane travel decreased 0.4% to 293,000 trips.

However, American residents made 583,000 same-day car trips to Canada in October, down 1.3% from the previous month.

Travel to Canada by residents of countries other than the United States was down 0.8% from September to 378,000 trips in October.

However, 7 of the top 12 overseas markets recorded increases in travel to Canada.

In terms of percentage, the number of trips by Chinese residents to Canada was up 3.3% in October from September, the strongest increase, while the number of trips by Japanese residents was down 6.2%, the largest decrease.

Note: Monthly data are seasonally adjusted. All seasonally adjusted data have been revised back to January 2011. Revisions have been made to some non-seasonally adjusted series for each month of the first and second quarters of 2011.

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

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 5005.

The October 2011 issue of International Travel, Advance Information, Vol. 27, no. 10 (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 Lotfi Chahdi (613-951-3136; lotfi.chahdi@statcan.gc.ca), Tourism and the Centre for Education Statistics Division.