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October 06, 2021TOURISM ACTIVITY TRACKER, JULY 2021 Statistics Canada's "Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker" illustrate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism activity. The data reported provide a comparison between the latest reference period (July 2021) and the same period in 2019, prior to the pandemic. This provides a snapshot of how tourism activity has changed, including air travel, surface travel, hotels/accommodations, spending and trip duration. Tourism activity is monitored for both domestic travellers (those travelling within Canada, including within province more than 40 km from home) as well as inbound travellers from international sources. Overall tourism is estimated as a weighted average of domestic and inbound tourism activities.
At the end of April 2021, Nova Scotia implemented new travel and activity restrictions in response to another wave of COVID-19 infections. With these restrictions in place, Nova Scotia's tourism fell to 73.2% below May 2019 levels including a 64.0% decline in domestic activity and a 97.4% decline in international inbound activity (all were the largest declines among provinces).
In June and July, restrictions were subsequently eased in Nova Scotia and around the country as vaccine coverage grew. There was a large rebound in domestic tourism activity in each of these two months.
By July 2021, Nova Scotia's tourism activity was up to 52.4% below July 2019 levels. This was primarily driven by a recovery in domestic tourism activity, which rose to 36.9% below July 2019 levels; although significantly improved, this was still the second largest decline in Canada. International inbound tourism activity in Nova Scotia also improved, but was still 91.6% below July 2019 levels (the largest such decline among provinces).
The sharp rise in domestic tourism activity was similar across all provinces, though the gain in Prince Edward Island was more modest (still 51.8% below July 2019 levels). British Columbia's domestic tourism activity reached 7.4% below July 2019 levels while Newfoundland and Labrador's domestic tourism was down just 10.4%.
International inbound tourism activity improved slightly in all provinces, but still remains significantly lower than observed in July 2019. Nova Scotia's international inbound tourism was the furthest below July 2019 levels (-91.6%) while Saskatchewan's was the closest (-79.0%).
Overall tourism activity in Canada was down 40.9% compared to July 2019. Saskatchewan (-20.5%) and Newfoundland and Labrador (-21.4%) report the least declines while Pricen Edward Island (-58.6%) and Nova Scotia (-52.4%) report the largest.
With strong travel and activity restrictions at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism activity fell dramatically in all provinces. Activity recovered in the summer and fall of 2020, as domestic tourism started to grow again (international inbound tourism remained well below 2019 levels). Additional restrictions and travel limitations in the spring of 2021 drove tourism activity down again, particularly domestic tourism. As restrictions were eased in the summer of 2021, there was a sharp rebound in tourism activity across all provinces, driven primarily by domestic tourism.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 24-10-0049-01 Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker and Grouped Data Sources, Canadian Tourism Activity Tracker
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