The U.S. tourism industry had a major boost from Canadians last year, with spenders from this country pouring $9.2 billion into U.S. retail goods, hotels and meals in 2010. Visa reported Monday that credit-card spending in the U.S. by all international visitors jumped 18% from 2009.
Canadians spent more in the U.S. than any other nation with $9.2 billion compared with $7.88 billion in 2009, an 18% increase that matches the overall international number. That accounts for 79 million transactions compared with 68 million transactions a year earlier.
Based on Visa spending tallies, the top destinations were New York, Nevada, California, Florida and Texas.
The increase in value of the Canadian dollar relative to U.S. currency was a likely contributor to the jump although a Visa representative suggested that greater global interest in international tourism means that people are generally more inclined to travel than in decades past.
Visa's data also showed Canada is the most popular destination for travellers from the U.S., with Americans using their credit cards to spend $3.5 billion here last year for an 8% increase over the previous year.
Mexico was the second-most popular destination, attracting $3.1 billion. The United Kingdom, a distant third, attracted $1.6 billion.
Visa did not break down visits to Canada by province but one expert said B.C. in general, and Vancouver and Whistler in particular, can expect to continue to reap spinoff benefits from the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Visa's Paul Wilke expert believes a stronger Canadian dollar is only a "marginal" factor.
"It's less of a story about exchange rates and more of a story about travel," Wilke said
Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that there were almost 25% fewer international travellers coming to Canada compared with the same period a year ago, although that number should be viewed with caution because February 2010 marked the opening of the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
The February 2011 drop in visits by non-residents to all Canadian provinces was 13.6% compared with the same month last year.
Visits have been dropping since at least 2006 when Stats Can reported 33.3 million nonresident entries to Canada compared with 24.6 million in 2010. Last year's drop in international visits to B.C. was larger than the national average -26.3% in February 2011 compared with the Olympic year.
Vancouver officials, however, are confident. International tourism is growing, and even U.S. business is expected to be solid. For example, this is the first full year of operation for the new Vancouver Convention Centre.
Paul Vallee, executive vicepresident, Tourism Vancouver, said the local agency expects the rest of the year to "balance out" favourably.
"We do have some good business on the books for the balance of the year -business that has already been booked into the city.
"It's a very good convention year for us, international and U.S. conventions coming to Vancouver."
He said there is "no doubt" that the U.S. market remains challenging for a host of reasons, primarily economic ones. "The U.S. remains, aside from Canadian visitors coming to Vancouver, the most important market for us by far, but it's not producing the numbers that it did four or five years ago. The [falling] U.S. dollar remains a bit of a contributing factor."
But Vallee said not all B.C. businesses in the tourism sector feel the same degree of impact from a stronger Canadian dollar and a weaker U.S. buck.
"It tends to have a bigger impact on the border crossing market because there is a bigger sensitivity and awareness. The further afield you go, it's a little different. The other thing is that, for the dollar difference or for any currency, when you are planning a trip a little farther out in advance there is less impact than when you are planning a more immediate getaway."
The good news, Vallee noted, is that Canadian operators are finding it more affordable to promote their products and services in U.S. markets compared with a few years ago.
The situation is stable enough that tourism-focused businesses such as hotel operators are not offering steep discounts on room rates; Vancouver, Vallee noted, is competitively priced on a world scale.
Meanwhile, StatsCan reported a 20.3% February jump in tourism from China, where Canada was recently given preferred destination status.
