Olympics boosts tourism

Olympics boosts tourism

Influx to B.C. in February mainly from U.S. motorists

Canwest News Service
April 20, 2010 

Thanks to visitors flocking to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, travel to Canada posted a strong gain in February from the month before, Statistics Canada reported Monday.

The number of non-residents entering Canada through B.C. rose 24 per cent between January and February as Vancouver hosted the Winter Games, the federal agency said.

Driven by increases in travellers entering B.C., travel from the U.S. and overseas countries to Canada rose 5.2 per cent in February from the previous month.

"There were 10.9 per cent more overseas residents and 29.1 per cent more United States residents who entered British Columbia for overnight trips in February compared with January," StatsCan said. "There was also a 40.8-percent gain in same-day car trips by U.S. residents during the month."

B.C., however, wasn't the only beneficiary. Across the country, U.S. residents took 1.7 million trips to Canada in February for a 5.7-percent gain in travel. The number of same-day car trips by Americans to Canada also rose 7.3 per cent to 654,000 trips.

Overseas residents made 370,000 trips to Canada in February, up 2.6 per cent from January.

At 61.8 per cent, the biggest jump was in trips by people from the Netherlands. In second and third place, respectively, visits by Italians rose 19.7 per cent and forays to Canada by the Swiss climbed 18.6 per cent.

The largest drop, at 21.8 per cent, was from India.

Canadian residents took slightly fewer than 4.2 million trips outside of Canada in the same period, a 0.7 per cent decline from January.

Same-day car trips to the U.S. fell two per cent in February, while the overall number of overnight trips by Canadians to the United States increased 0.2 per cent.

Canadians also took 677,000 trips to overseas destinations, up one per cent from January.

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