Canadian sun-seekers spend nearly $4 billion in 1st quarter

Canadians made 2.7 million overnight trips for pleasure to the U.S. between January and March, and spent $2.9 billion during their visits, according to data released Thursday by Statistics Canada.

Comparatively, American residents took 673,000 overnight pleasure trips to Canada and only spent $366 million during their visits in the year’s first quarter. Most American visitors to Canada came from New York state, Washington state and Michigan.

There were also more Canadians travelling to the U.S. for business trips than Americans travelling to Canada.

Canadians made 610,000 overnight business trips south of the border in the first quarter, while Americans made 402,000 overnight business trips to Canada.

Canadians spent $593 million on business travel in the United States, while Americans spent $305 million in Canada.

Nearly half of the Canadian tourists travelling to the U.S. between January and March —1.3 million —went to Florida, where they spent $1.4 billion. New York State and California rounded out the top 3 U.S. destinations.

In terms of overseas travel, in the cold winter months sunny and warm destinations drew Canadians. In the first quarter Canadians racked up 2.3 million overnight visits to destinations such as Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, spending nearly $2.6 billion there.

In terms of overseas tourists visiting Canada, most came from the U.K., France and German, Statistics Canada reported.

Source: Financial Post