Where Canadians Travelled and Visited

My entry today concerns a very interesting web article located on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news web site. The article discusses where Canadians travelled and spent their holidays. I guess not to my surprise, Canadians visited the United States 15,992,000 of the total 22,731,000 trips abroad in 2006. According to the statistics, that is 1.1 million more visits than in 2005 and almost 2.5 million more than in 2001. Of the most visited states between 2000 and 2006, New York, Michigan, Washington, California, and Ohio were the top ranked respectively. Of course, Florida ranked high for winter visits...no kidding! Starting in November, I feel as if I am driving in Montreal or Toronto with the number of Quebec and Ontario license plates (notice, I did not say "TAGS" --- what is a tag?). What kills me is that there are so many Quebecers here during December that the pre-game announcements for the Montreal Canadiens/Florida Panthers game are made in both English and French. C'mon --- gimme a break!

So, what has caused this surge in travel to the United States? Travel south of the border has always been a magnet for Canucks, whether it be for NFL Football (Buffalo Bills), bargains at outlet malls for cross-border shopping, cheaper cigarettes and liquor, or the thrill of hugging Mickey Mouse. But, I think it is more than that. The U.S. dollar has fallen on hard times of late on the world's currency exchange markets (and, who is to blame for that? --- a high five from me personally to the first who answers the question correctly), making travel a literal bargain compared with going to Europe. The Canadian dollar as of today is trading at almost 95 cents U.S. currency. That is almost on par; this has not been the case since the mid to late 70's. As a contrast, the Canadian dollar was worth a miniscule 64 cents in U.S. currency in August 1998. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm....who was the President of the United States back then? Travelling to Canada was a bargain, even with the provincial sales taxes and federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 7 per cent. As visitors to Canada, you were eligible to receive a refund for goods purchased and your hotel taxes.

Americans continue to visit the "Great White North" --- but the numbers are falling off due to the above and to the current administration's passport regulations. While there were 13,856,000 overnight trips across the 49th parallel in 2006, this is a decrease of 500,000 from 2005 and 2.3 million less from 2002.

Just as an aside, Cuba was the fifth most popular destination for Canadian tourists --- 638,000 visits in 2006. Why is this so? One word ---- CHEAP. A dialogue about this is worthy of another blog posting.