Canadian visits to U.S. drop for a third straight year

A wide variety of new international flights are encouraging more tourists to visit Canada and more Canadians to travel abroad, with one notable exception: the United States.

The number of Canadians travelling to the U.S. fell for the third consecutive year in 2016, down 7.7 per cent, according to new data from Statistics Canada.

This appears to be the result of the weaker Canadian dollar, which is trading around US$0.76. Since 2013, when the loonie was last at par, the number of Canadians travelling to the U.S. by car has fallen by 31.3 per cent to 31.8 million in 2016. The U.S. is still the top international destination for Canadians, accounting for three-quarters of trips abroad.

The trend is the opposite for U.S. visitors to Canada, which rose 8.3 per cent in 2016 and 8.4 per cent in 2015. This bucked the trend of the preceding 15 years, which saw small increases or declines, the agency said.

Besides the U.S., the flow of travellers entering and leaving Canada was up across the board. One of the most notable increases was in visitors from Mexico, which rose 23.2 per cent to 252,000 trips in 2016.

The most dramatic increase came in December, when travel by residents of Mexico jumped 36.5 per cent from the month before after Canada lifted its visa requirements for Mexican visitors on Dec. 1. That same day, Aeromexico increased its capacity to Canada by 47 per cent and said it plans to add more flights to Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal this summer.

Overall, visitors to Canada from abroad increased 9.4 per cent last year to 30.1 million, the highest number and the largest increase since the 2008-09 recession. Overseas visitors rose 13.6 per cent.

Canadians travelling overseas, meanwhile, rose 3.7 per cent.