Canada Just Misses Top Ten Tourism Country List: Caribbean Tourism Posts Strong Numbers, Including Belize and Grenada

The latest ranking of countries for travel and tourism puts Canada just outside the top 10.

The 2024 Travel and Tourism Development Index from the World Economic Forum gives top spot to the United States, followed by Spain and Japan. Canada came in 11th, receiving relatively low scores for tourism infrastructure, openness to travel and tourism, cultural resources and price competitiveness.

Destination Canada and the Tourism Industry Association of Canada recently stated that Canada was recently ranked 13^th  (in 2021), and that they aimed to get the country into the top seven by 2030. The tourism index report states Canada was number nine in 2019, so maybe we’re headed in the right direction.

The index ranked countries around the world on a more than a dozen issues, including natural resources, business environment and safety/security. Scores range from 1 to 7, with 7 being best.

Here’s a look at how Canada and the U.S. compared in some key areas:

Price competitiveness: USA 2.59, Canada 3.19

Safety and security: USA 5.36, Canada 5.97

Openness to travel and tourism: USA 4.78, Canada 4.00

Air transportation infrastructure: USA 6.15, Canada 5.37

Tourism services infrastructure : USA 5.46, Canada 4.08

Cultural Resources: USA 5.06, Canada 2.89 

The cultural resources score is something I find rather baffling. Canada doesn’t have the breadth of the U.S. when it comes to museums, live theatre, music and such, but we’re pretty good. I did a quick scan of the report and found Canada was well below many other countries. Mexico was at 6.25; more than double Canada’s score, while Brazil was at 5.44. Elsewhere, Italy had a near perfect score of 6.74, while Japan notched a terrific mark of 6.71. Australia was almost a full point ahead of Canada at 3.78. 

The Ontario College of Art & Design in downtown Toronto. JIM BYERS PHOTO

The issue of openness to travel and tourism is something mentioned by Canadian tourism officials in their recent report, which suggested Canada needs to “deepen Canadians’ pride in their home and love for hosting visitors” to improve the country’s tourism competitiveness.

“There are several areas where attention is needed in our tourism economy,” TIAC President and CEO Beth Potter said in an email, including investing in things like museums and other cultural institutions and making sure Canadians know the important of the visitor economy (roughly one in 10 jobs in Canada are related to travel and tourism).

As for this year’s index, New Zealand fell from 20^th spot in 2019 to 25^th this year, while Iceland fell from 22^nd five years ago to 32^nd this time around. Mexico dropped from 32^nd in 2019 to 38^th this year, while India fell from 29th to 39th. Greece rose from 26^th to 21^st, while the United Arab Emirates has jumped seven spots since 2019 and now ranks 18^th in the world. Indonesia leapt from 36^th in 2019 to 22^nd in this year’s index, while Turkiye rose eight spots to 29th.

Here are the top 25 countries in the world according to this year’s World Economic Forum travel and tourism index, with accompanying total score and 2019 ranking in parentheses.

1. USA, 5.24 (1)
2. Spain, 5.18 (2)
3. Japan, 5.09 (3)
4. France, 5.07 (6)
5. Australia 5.00 (7)
6. Germany, 5.00 (5)
7. United Kingdom, 4.96 (4)
8. China, 4.94 (9)
9. Italy, 4.90 (12)
10. Switzerland, 4.81 (8)
11. Canada, 4.81 (10)
12. Portugal, 4.78 ((13)
13. Singapore, 4.76 (11)
14. Korea, 4.74 (14)
15. Austria, 4.65 (15)
16. Netherlands, 4.64 (17)
17. Denmark, 4.63 (16)
18. United Arab Emirates, 4.62 (25)
19. Sweden, 4.57 (19)
20. Finland, 4.52 (18)
21. Greece, 4.52 (26)
22. Indonesia, 4.46 (36)
23. Belgium, 4.45 (23)
24. Ireland, 4.44 (21)
25. New Zealand, 4.41 (20)

CARIBBEAN TOURISM CLIMBING FAST

Grand Anse Beach in Grenada. Hugh Whyte/Unsplash Photo

A new report says international arrivals to the Caribbean should jump by 10% in the first half of this year. Canadian visits will rise 14%, which demonstrates how much we value Caribbean travel.

The Forward Keys Caribbean Travel Trends report for 2024 says international arrivals to the region show a 10% year-over-year increase for the first six months of this year, and a growth of 13% compared to 2019. That means Canadian visits to the Caribbean are outpacing those of the world as a whole.

It’s also worth noting that Caribbean tourism is 13% ahead of pre-pandemic levels, while the world as a whole is still down 16% from 2019.

Here’s the full Forward Keys report for projected international visitor arrivals in the first half of this year:

1. Belize 30%
2. Curacao, 24%
3. Aruba, 20%
4. Grenada, 19%
5. Sint Maarten, 19%
6. Puerto Rico, 18%
7. U.S. Virgin Islands, 18%
8. Turks and Caicos, 16%
9. Barbados, 14%
10. Dominican Republic, 12%
11. Cayman Islands, 11%
12. Saint Lucia, 11%
13. Guyana, 11%
14. Antigua and Barbuda, 9%
15. Cancun, 7%
16. Trinidad and Tobago, 7%
17. Bahamas, 6%
18. Cuba, 4%
19. Martinique, 4%
20. Jamaica, 2%
21. Bermuda, even
22. Guadeloupe, minus 1%