B.C.’s January overnight visitors from Australia jumped 22.6%, from the Asia-Pacific, 11%, and from the United States, 3.2%, year over year, according to Statistics Canada.
“What we’re seeing gives us confidence that our regional optimism for 2011 is so far so good,” said Stephen Pearce, vice-president of leisure travel at Tourism Vancouver.
“This is only one month [in 2011] so this doesn’t make a trend yet, but what we are seeing so far is positive and it’s what we expected to see.”
B.C. saw a total of 185,591 international overnight visitors in January, compared with 177,378 the year prior – a 4.6% increase, which is nearly double the nationwide gain of 2.4%.
“More tourists coming to B.C. means more jobs for B.C. families and more revenue that we can invest in critical services including education and health,” said Pat Bell, minister of jobs, tourism and innovation.
“The fact that more travellers arrived here this January than January 2010 – when numbers were bolstered by an influx of media, athletes and other visitors preparing for the Winter Games – testifies to the strength and resilience of this sector, which provides one in 14 jobs in British Columbia.”
B.C.’s gain of U.S. visitors comes despite a high Canadian dollar and the struggling American economy and is more than double Canada’s overall increase in U.S. visitors in January of 1.4%.
These gains mark B.C.’s eighth monthly gain in overnight international visitors and the 11th increase in Australian visitors in the past 12 months.
“This is the fourth straight month of increases in overnight visits from the U.S. and the ninth increase in a row from China, where we already have great connections and are working to build on our approved destination status by focusing on the world’s second-largest economy,” Bell said.
Pearce noted that one surprise in the numbers was growth in visitors from Mexico.
“It’s wonderful,” he said. “It would be good to see some recovery in that market.”