Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker, December 2021
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Released: 2022-03-04
Highlights
In December, overall tourism activity in Canada was 29.1% below the level reached before the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019. This was the seventh consecutive month of improvement since May and the highest level of activity since March of 2020.
Despite new restrictions to combat the Omicron variant, increased activity in both domestic and inbound travel kept tourism on the track to recovery in December.
Visit the Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker tool to interact with the data.
Some travel restrictions return
In late November 2021, the World Health Organization declared a new variant of concern, Omicron, prompting Canada to re-implement travel restrictions. On December 15, the Government of Canada advised against all non-essential travel outside of the country and then, as of December 21, a negative molecular test for all travellers was required for entry.
Until December 21, 2021, Canada's borders had re-opened to all fully vaccinated international travellers, and, domestically, the vaccination rate was increasing across the country. At the same time, the job vacancy rate reached 10.9% in accommodation and food services during December, the highest monthly rate across all sectors, but payroll employment remained below its pre-pandemic level (-12.7%; -170,600).
Recovery slows in December
Since dipping to 68.5% below its pre-pandemic level in May 2021, overall tourism activity has increased relative to its 2019 reference year for seven consecutive months, with December 2021 recovering to 29.1% below its pre-pandemic level. While it is a monthly improvement from November, the rate of recovery slowed somewhat in December.
Domestic activity (i.e., Canadians travelling within Canada) initially began driving the recovery in summer 2021. In the fall, as Canada's borders were re-opened to fully vaccinated international travellers, inbound activity (i.e., from international visitors) then began to recover more sharply. However, the rate of recovery for both types of travel has slowed in December, with domestic activity down 18.8% and inbound activity 57.5% from the same month in 2019, before the pandemic.
Chart 1
Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker, December 2019 to December 2021
Inbound activity helps some provinces
Typically, December experiences a rise in tourism because of holiday travel and the start of winter vacations. With testing and quarantining no longer required for fully vaccinated international travellers for most of the month, a surge of over 210,000 overseas residents arrived in Canada during December 2021.
This increase in international visitors was felt more in some provinces than others. In the east, inbound activity in Newfoundland and Labrador (-0.46) and New Brunswick (-0.46) in December was back to more than half of its pre-pandemic level. Out west, inbound activity increased in December from November in all provinces, but such activity in British Columbia still remains more than 60% below its level in December 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.
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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