After comparatively tepid growth in 2015, the number of tourist visits to Vancouver from Taiwan has surged in 2016.
This week’s numbers from Destination B.C. show that 4,072 Taiwanese entered Canada through B.C. in February. That’s up 71% from the same month a year ago.
Combined with January, which had a 46.4% year-over-year jump, so far in 2016, Taiwanese overnight visitation to Canada through Vancouver has shot up 61.3%.
No new flights launched between Taiwan and Vancouver and the Lunar New Year celebrations were in February both years. There were also no major sporting events that would have attracted Taiwanese people in particular.
So, the surge in tourism would seem to be inexplicable.
The most likely explanation for the increase in tourism is that the Canadian dollar fell to its lowest level against the Taiwanese dollar in more than a decade in January.
“The Taiwanese dollar’s value usually sticks close to the U.S. dollar,” said Margaret Wang, who is a director at the Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society.
“That means Canadians were giving tourists a 30-40% discount.”
The Hong Kong dollar, however, is pegged to the U.S. dollar and that did not help Hong Kong visitation, which fell 11.7% in February and 2.1% in the first two months of the year.
Taiwanese entries to Canada through Vancouver had been growing at a steady clip: 10.2% in 2013 and then 12.5% in 2014. Growth slowed dramatically in 2015 to a mere 2.4%, following a similar pattern as slowing tourism growth from mainland China .
Stepping back, overnight tourist entries to Vancouver from all countries combined in February were up 16.2% compared with the same month in 2015. With January added in, total overnight visitor entries to Vancouver are up 15.3%.
After Taiwan, the countries that had the next largest tourism growth rates in February were France (61.2%), the Netherlands (29.7%) and Italy (21.2%).
(Chart shows how the Canadian dollar has performed against the Taiwanese dollar in the past decade | www.xe.com)
The U.S. is responsible for about two-thirds of all overnight visitor entries to Canada through Vancouver. Its growth rate in February was 20.1%, for a total of 189,605 overnight visitors during the month.
