Q1 Travel Spending Snapshot

Statistics Canada (StatCan) has released its report on travel spending for the first quarter of 2025. Despite shifts in where people are travelling (i.e. the transborder travel slump) spending has remained “virtually unchanged.”

Travel spending over time in Canada (Photo Credit: Statistics Canada)

Overnight travel numbers to Canada were down 4.8 percent, meaning spending was also down by 2.6 percent in the first quarter, compared to a 2.3 percent increase in the fourth quarter of 2024. Major contributors to the decline were accommodation (-2.7 percent), passenger air transport (-2.4 percent) and food and beverage services (-2.7 percent).

On the other hand, domestic tourism spending was up a little bit — 0.8 percent — following a 1.2 percent increase in the fourth quarter of 2024. The categories that drove the increase are mainly:

• Accommodation services (5.1 percent). 
• Food and beverage services (2.5 percent). 
• Non-tourism products (2.2 percent). 
  
  

StatCan counts “domestic tourism spending” as money spent by Canadian residents on Canadian goods and services, even if these goods and services are for travel outside Canada. Unfortunately for travel professionals, the categories that saw a decline in spending are:

• Travel services (-8.5 percent). 
• Pre-trip expenditures (-6.5 percent). 
  
  

The federal government stated that this may indicate changing travel plans by Canadians in the first quarter and subsequent months. The number of overnight trips by Canadians returning from the United States decreased in the first quarter (-12.2 percent) and in April (-7.3 percent).

Related: Arrivals Wane: April Travel Statistics from StatCan

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