International travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted many travel enthusiasts to explore local and regional tourist destinations. However, communities have been affected very differently from increased numbers of homegrown tourists.
In Canada, the impact on international travel due to COVID-19 was immediate, with a decrease of 614,000 international arrivals to Canada in March 2020. That represented a 92-per-cent decrease over 2019 a loss that has not yet been recovered. Monthly international tourist arrivals in 2019 and 2020. Authors’ calculations based on Statistics Canada data
At the same time, travel restrictions played a role in shifting up to 20 million holiday and leisure trips abroad by Canadian residents to domestic destinations. Boosting domestic travel has been at the heart of federaland provincial government strategies to limit losses in the tourism sector.