Canadians travel more internationally

More Canadians are travelling internationally than ever before, according to the newest figures released by Statistics Canada. More than 4.5 million Canadians travelled abroad during the month of May alone, which represents an increase of 12.6 percent over figures from the same period in 2007. The vast majority of these international trips, however, were to the nearby United States. Of the 4.5 million Canadian travellers, 3.8 million visited the US this past May. This, however, also shows that America is growing in popularity among Canadians; the most recent figure represents an increase of 12.9 percent over spring 2007. The driving force behind this growth in cross-border travel is the high value of the Canadian dollar, at least in comparison to the Greenback. For nearly a year, the Canadian dollar has enjoyed parity and is occasionally valued higher than the Greenback, making travel to the US cheaper than ever before.

While much of the growth in international travel can be attributed to overnight and short visits to the US, the number of Canadians travelling overseas and outside of North America more generally has also increased by 10.9 percent in May, which translated into a total of 664,000 Canadians going overseas.

Interestingly, as the number of Canadians travelling abroad increases, fewer foreign citizens are choosing to come to Canada, and the high Canadian dollar as well as worries about the US economy probably has a lot to do with this trend. The number of foreign nationals who visited Canada declined by 7.2 percent in May 2008.