China Relations Hurting U.S. and Canada Tourism, Plus Top 10 World Backpacking Spots

There’s been a good deal of attention paid to how the ongoing trade wars and increasing political hostility between the U.S. and China and between Canada and China is hurting the economies of both the U.S. and Canada.
What I hadn’t seen until today is something that focusses on how travel and tourism are being affected.
A report on CBS News paints a troubling picture that should have American tourism folks pretty scared. I also found a Statistics Canada study from this week that shows Canadians also are being hurt.
The CBS News item quotes a study from Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company, as saying that Chinese visits to the U.S. are down 2.2% this year. Last year they were down 5.7%, reversing a trend that had seen China visits grow for 14 years in a row.

Chinese visits to Canada are down sharply so far in 2019. JIM BYERS PHOTO

China used to be far down the list for foreign visitation to North America. But the Chinese have rocketed up the charts the last few years and now make up one of the most important sources of foreign visitors; and foreign money.
The CBS News item I found today says China is the third largest market for overseas visits to the U.S. Even more impressive is that the average Chinese visitor to the U.S. spends $5,800; more than double the average $2,500 that a visitor from the UK spends.
Tourism Economics is estimating the total loss to the U.S. economy at $11 billion. That’s money that’s lost forever to hotel workers, restaurant owners, dishwashers, ticket takers at tourist attractions and other business owners and employees.
“The Chinese tourist is important to the U.S. because China ranks No. 1 in revenues generated from travel,” Larry Yu, professor of hospitality management at George Washington University, said in the CBS News story. “Here in D.C., China is the No. 1 overseas market. It’s quite significant for economic contributions to local destinations.”
I don’t have numbers for Canada, but there’s no reason to think Chinese visitors spend a great deal less here than they do on a visit to the United States.
The StatsCan report I found this week shows that air arrivals to Canada from China are down 5.8% in the first half of this year. China is our second largest source of foreign visitors (after the U.S.), so we’re feeling the pain just like our American cousins.
Right now, it’s hard to see any major improvements looming in relations between China and the U.S., or between China and Canada. I’m not saying that Canada or the U.S. should give in to Chinese demands; far from it. I’m just pointing out that there’s often a cost for taking principled positions and that the Canadian tourism sector is taking a hit, just like the U.S.
Perhaps the silver lining in this is that visits to Canada from the U.S. are up 2.2% this year. I did an interview on this with CTV News yesterday and talked about the impact of the low Canadian dollar, as well as the potential impact of the legalization of cannabis in Canada and the friendly, welcoming attitude we have towards visitors from around the world.

It’s interesting that more Americans are visiting Canada. At the same time, the number of Canadians visiting the U.S. was down 2.8% in the first half of 2019.
Visits from just about everywhere to the U.S. are down, possibly because of the strength of the U.S. dollar but I suspect largely because of the rhetoric emanating from the charlatan in the White House.
Here’s another interesting fact: visits to the U.S. are down, but New York City is expecting a record number of visits this year; likely around 57 million.
Why would New York numbers be up and overall U.S. numbers be down? I may be wrong, but I suspect New York City’s marketing program has something to do with it. NYC Tourism officials have gone out of their way to tilt against the Trump windmill, marketing their city as a welcoming place for people around the world.
It seems obvious that people would respond favourably to campaigns like New York’s, and that they’d want to visit cities and countries that welcome them in a warm, engaging way. It’s too bad the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. doesn’t understand that.

JIM BYERS PHOTO

WORLD’S TOP BACKPACKING SPOTS

Here’s a great study. Okay, it puts my adopted country of Canada (38 years now) in a good light, so that doesn’t hurt my feelings.
The folks at a company called Globehunters did a study of the world’s best – and safest – places to backpack. They looked at everything from 3G network coverage to safety and cost of living, and ranked cities on the results.
Finland came out on top, followed by Denmark and then Canada, which gives us a bronze medal in the backpacking Olympics.
The United States was way down at 32.
I couldn’t find New Zealand, which I think would do well, but Australia was ninth.
The worst rating of the 78 countries listed was Uganda.
Here’s the top ten:
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Canada
4. Czech Republic
5. Sweden
6. Netherlands
7. Austria
8. United Arab Emirates
9. Australia
10. Singapore