Tourism numbers increase by nearly 100,000 year-to-date

There has been an increase of about 95,000 visitors to Nova Scotia so far this year, compared to 2016, the government’s tourism agency reported Wednesday.

With an additional 46,000 visitors coming from Ontario by the end of July, tourists from Ontario represent nearly half of the visitor growth in Nova Scotia this year.

The trend for more visitors coming from Ontario continued for the month of July.

Tourism Nova Scotia calculated most of the additional visitors were from Ontario — an increase of 21,300 people above the same period last year.

There were also 7,000 additional visitors from Western Canada in July compared to the number of Western Canadian visitors who came to Nova Scotia during that same period last year.

There were an additional 2,000 visitors from the United States and another 2,000 from “overseas markets” in July, according to a news release put out by Tourism Nova Scotia.

The tourism agency calculated, of the 32,000 additional visitors coming here in July, 23,000 arrived by air, an increase of 27 per cent, and visitors arriving by automobile or bus increased by three per cent.

From the start of the tourism season to the end of July, a total of 1,481,000 licensed “room nights” were sold in Nova Scotia according to Tourism Nova Scotia, an increase of two per cent compared with the same period in 2016.

The occupancy rate increased by six percentage points to 70 per cent year-to-date, with Halifax selling the most “room nights” at 171,000, followed by Cape Breton’s 84,000 “room nights” and the Bay of Fundy and Annapolis Valley region with 64,000 “room nights” sold.

Nova Scotians and non-resident visitors bought 392,000 licensed “room nights” in July, an increase of two per cent over July 2016.

Tourism Nova Scotia is estimating tourism revenues for the 2017 season will total $1.4 billion, compared with $1.3 billion in 2016.