Canadian residents returned from over 3.7 million trips abroad in August 2022, more than four times as many trips as were taken in August 2021. StatsCan says Canadian trips abroad were up 340.4% in August compared to last year. Still, the August 2022 figure was only 63.4% of the level in August 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the month of August 752,900 Canadian residents returned from visiting overseas, more than double from the same month in 2021 (341,700). During the same month, travel to U.S. increased six-fold over AUG 2021. StatsCan said the number of international arrivals to Canada Read more
Pearson Airport
The Trudeau government says the situation at Canadian airports continues to improve. The government on Friday afternoon issued the following statement: Flight completions * For the week of October 3-9, 2022, 99 percent of flights planned for Canada’s top four airports were completed (i.e., not cancelled); an improvement from 95 percent for the first week of July. * This percentage is the same as the week of October 7-13, 2019, when 99 percent of flights for the top four airports were completed. On-time performance * From October 3-9, 2022, over 91 percent of flights from the top four airports left Read more
With Hurricane Ian receding on the news cycle, Florida’s tourism-marketing agency is launching a $2.7 million USD campaign to show that large areas of the state were not badly damaged by the storm. Fox News says the Visit Florida campaign will run on digital and social media platforms through the end of October and show recent footage taken from 14 parts of the state with the message, “Sun’s Shining in Florida.” Florida is, of course, a very large state. Hurricane Ian devasted areas around Fort Myers/Sanibel/Captiva, but many other areas of the Sunshine State, including Saint Augustine and Florida’s Historic Read more
Is ArriveCAN Killing Canadian Tourism? Also, Airport Delays Continue + Porter Expansion Edges Closer
Is the ArriveCAN app killing Canadian tourism? A new CBC story quotes a border city tourism operator and the mayor of Niagara Falls, Ontario as saying the app has done tremendous damage to a region that relies heavily on American visitation to keep people employed. “When you talk to any businesses in town, they’ll tell you there’s a very small amount of American dollars coming in,” said Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati. “It’s been hurtful, especially after two years of COVID.” Anna Pierce, vice president of Niagara Helicopters, told the network that she’s had several calls from potential U.S. visitors Read more
The Trudeau government says it’s making progress on passport and airport delays, but it admits there’s a lot of work to do. Federal government ministers put out a statement today saying that it’s hired more than 700 new staff for passport offices and hired 1,800 more security screening officers at airports. It also said it’s decreasing flight delays,cancellations and baggage woes, and that the average wait times at the passport call centre have significantly decreased from a peak of 108 minutes earlier this spring to 24 minutes as of August 21. “With this surge in passport requests and significant delays Read more
