Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker, December 2022
Released: 2023-03-06
Highlights
In December, overall tourism activity in Canada had recovered more than nine-tenths of its 2019 pre-COVID-19 pandemic level, largely on the strength of domestic travel.
Visit the Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker visualization tool to interact with the data.
A preview of more recent international travel can be found in the release "Leading indicator of international arrivals to Canada" for the January 2023 reference period.
Tourism activity
Overall tourism activity in December reached 91.9% of the December 2019 level, before the pandemic. While domestic activity (i.e., from Canadian residents travelling within Canada) reached 96.0% of its pre-pandemic level, inbound activity (i.e., from international visitors) was less robust, at 80.6% of the December 2019 level.
Provincial recovery
All provinces have recovered roughly 85% or more of their overall tourism activity levels from December 2019.
Final release
The Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker was an experimental product designed in 2021 to assess recovery of tourism activity in Canada. As currently designed, the Tracker has fulfilled this purpose and will no longer be updated after this December 2022 release.
Note to readers
The Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker was part of a shift at Statistics Canada from measuring the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to assessing the recovery. The Tracker combined 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 was first normalized using a ratio method that removed seasonality and allowed comparison with the same month from the 2019 base. Then, weights were used to combine these normalized values into a single estimate for a given month and geography. The weights were determined based on the data series correlation with overall tourism, the higher the correlation, the larger the weight.
The domestic tourism value was calculated using domestic-related data, while the inbound value used international-related sources. The two values were 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 indicated that tourism activity was greater than the 2019 base, while a value below zero indicated the opposite.
As an experimental product, caution is warranted when interpreting these estimates.
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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