Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker, September 2021
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Released: 2021-12-06
Highlights
In September, overall tourism activity in Canada was 37.1% below the level reached in September 2019, before the pandemic. This was the fourth consecutive month of recovery since activity dipped 68.6% below the pre-pandemic level in May.
The reopening in some provinces over the summer, along with the easing of border restrictions starting in July, contributed to this improvement.
Visit the Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker tool to interact with recent and historic data.
Canada continues to ease restrictions
As most provinces continue to ease restrictions, the federal government has opened Canada's borders to all fully vaccinated foreign nationals for discretionary travel on September 7, 2021.
Inbound tourism activity begins to support recovery
Tourism activity remained somewhat subdued at the start of this year as health and border restrictions were tightened to combat regional outbreaks and new COVID-19 variants. Temporary reopenings in March provided a reprieve of sorts before additional lockdowns took place in April and into May in order to combat the third wave. Since dipping to 68.6% below its pre-pandemic level in May, overall tourism activity has now increased relative to the base year for four consecutive months.
As many restrictions were eased over the summer, along with a steady increase in vaccination rates, domestic tourism (i.e., the contribution of Canadians within Canada) was the initial driver of overall activity. In September, when Canada's borders were opened to all fully vaccinated, international travellers, inbound tourism activity (i.e., the contribution of international visitors) began to aid in the recovery. Overall tourism activity in Canada was 37.1% below the pre-pandemic level reached in September 2019, with domestic activity down 21.1% and inbound activity down 74.1%.
Chart 1
Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker, December 2019 to September 2021
Provincial recoveries vary
Typically, tourism in September begins to wane as summer vacations end and schools reopen. However, with testing and quarantine no longer required for fully vaccinated international travellers, over 150,000 overseas residents arrived in Canada during September 2021. This was an unseasonably large increase (+68.0%) from August and the highest number of international visitors since the pandemic began in March 2020.
While still a long road to full recovery, this jump of inbound activity helped to bolster tourism relatively more in Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia during September. Meanwhile, two other provinces are closer to full recovery, with tourism activity in September down by less than 20% from the same pre-pandemic month in 2019 in both Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan.
Chart 2
Change in provincial tourism activity, September 2021 compared with September 2019
Note to readers
The Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker is part of a shift at Statistics Canada from measuring the economic impacts of the pandemic to assessing the recovery. The tracker combines data from multiple sources including counts of international travellers, domestic and international commercial aircraft and surface movements as well as hotel occupancy rates and restaurant sales.
When combining these data sources, each series is first normalized using a ratio method that removes seasonality and allows comparison with the same month from the 2019 base. Then weights are used to combine these normalized values into a single estimate for a given month and geography. The weights are determined based on the data series correlation with overall tourism; the higher the correlation, the larger the weight.
The domestic tourism value is calculated using domestic-related data, while the inbound value uses international-related sources. The two values are combined proportionately based on pre-pandemic National Travel Survey and Visitor Travel Survey data with the level set to zero for each month in the 2019 base year. For a given month in subsequent years, a tracker value above zero indicates that tourism activity is greater than the 2019 base, while a value below zero indicates the opposite.
As an experimental product, caution is warranted when interpreting these estimates. As such, tracker estimates should be viewed as preliminary and are subject to revision. With more data sources being considered along with new methods, this may entail the need for further revisions.
On November 26, 2021, the World Health Organization declared a new variant of concern named Omicron. This has prompted Canada to reinstate COVID-19 testing on all air travellers, except those from the United States, upon arrival in Canada as well as applying a travel ban to a list of nations. The data in this release do not yet reflect the Omicron variant's impact on tourism.
Products
The product "Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker," part of the Data Visualization Products series (71-607-X), is now available.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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