Travel from Canada to the United States increased in June, while travel to Canada decreased in almost every trip category, according to an August 20 Statistics Canada report.
Canadian residents took 4.8 million trips to the U.S. in June, up 2.6% from May despite June being a shorter month. Overnight travel increased in every category, led by a 2.8% increase in overnight car travel.
Canadian residents took 2.7 million same-day car trips to the U.S. in June, up 2.7% from May, according to the data.
Travel from Canada to overseas countries decreased 0.4% to 792,000 trips in June when compared with May.
In contrast, Statistics Canada numbers show that travel to Canada from the United States declined 0.5% to 1.7 million trips in June. This included 601,000 same-day car trips to Canada, down 0.8% from May.
While overall overnight travel from the U.S. decreased 0.3% in June, overnight trips by plane to Canada from the U.S. rose 0.3% to 315,000 trips, compared with May.
This was the fifth consecutive monthly increase in this category and the highest monthly figure since September 2007.
Travel from overseas countries to Canada was down 0.5% in June, compared with May.
Although there was an overall decline, 8 of the top 12 overseas markets recorded increases in travel to Canada in June. The largest percentage increase was in travel from Hong Kong (+7.8%). The largest percentage decrease was in travel from Switzerland (-5.4%).
Travel to Canada from China rose 2.3% in June, crossing the 30,000 mark for the first time since recordkeeping began in 1990. Travel from China has increased 79.3% since June 2010, and the country is now Canada’s third largest overseas source of visitors.
