Statscan: China Among Top Ten Travel Destinations for Canadians
Canadians travel frequently but when it comes to knowing where we went and where we’re going, it’s not rocket science. In fact, dozens of organizations conduct surveys on the subject. But like on election day, when voting is the only poll that matters, the only surveys that provide a comprehensive snapshot of our actual cross-border movements are the ones done by Statistics Canada.
Statscan knows when — and how — we leave the country, where we go, how long we stay, when we return, and approximately how much money we spend while we’re away.
And while complete statistics for 2012 won’t be released until next year, and I can’t rank the Top 10 destinations with 100% certainty, I am pretty confident we have, and will, remain true to form in where we went and where we will go in 2013. As a nation, we are quite loyal and our Top 10 foreign destinations have not changed much in the past decade. Barring war, political upheaval or major natural disasters in those places, they likely won’t change much in 2013 either.
The United States will remain No. 1. It was No. 1 when our dollar was worth 65¢ US, and now that the loony is on par, almost par, or above par, the number of trips south of the border has soared to some 20-million-plus per year.
Our top states, are — predictably — border states and sunshine states: New York, Florida, Washington, California and Michigan in that order. Visits to New York, Washington and Michigan tend to be one to three-days, while visits to California and especially Florida are much longer.
As for the rest of the places on our Top 10 list, sometimes their rankings change but the destinations themselves remain pretty much the same.
Sun destinations continue to be wildly popular with Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic being Canadians’ fave places to hit the beach.
These are accented by our favourite European destinations — the United Kingdom (always in the top five, even when the British pound is much higher than it is now), France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands.
China is our preferred Asian destination, and the only country from that part of the world to make into the Top 10.
– canoe.ca/Travel