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December 06, 2021TOURISM ACTIVITY TRACKER, SEPTEMBER 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 (September 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 77.7% below May 2019 levels including a 70.2% decline in domestic activity and a 97.4% decline in international inbound activity (all were the largest declines among provinces for this month).
Over the summer months restrictions were subsequently eased in Nova Scotia and around the country as vaccine coverage grew. There was a large rebound in domestic tourism activity through in July, which continued at a somewhat slower pace in August.
The federal government opened Canada's borders to all fully vaccinated foreign nationals for discretionary travel on September 7, 2021. With the reopening of Canada's borders, tourism activity posted the fourth consecutive month of recovery since the activity dropped 68.8% below the pre-pandemic levels in May.
In September 2021, Nova Scotia's tourism activity was 41.6% below September 2019 levels. This was primarily driven by a recovery in domestic tourism activity, which rose to 25.8% below September 2019 levels. International inbound tourism activity in Nova Scotia was 84.5% below September 2019 levels (the largest such decline among provinces).
International inbound tourism activity improved tourism relatively more in Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia in September. Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador are the two provinces that are closest to full recovery, with tourism activity down by less than 20.0% in both provinces when compared to September 2019.
Overall tourism activity in Canada was down 37.1% compared to September 2019. Saskatchewan (-18.7%) and Newfoundland and Labrador (-18.2%) report the least declines while Nova Scotia (-41.6%) and British Columbia (-41.6%) 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 reduced tourism activity 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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