Rising Gas Prices Not Damaging Canadians’ Travel Plans

Road trips remain attractive while expensive jet fuel has also driven up airfares.

Some vacationers stay close to home for camping, hiking, and biking trips. Others are opting for car trips, rather than expensive plane tickets, as fuel costs and inflation weigh heavily, observes the President and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, Beth Potter.

It’s a more acceptable option to other modes of transportation at this time, where you’d be confined to a space with lots of other people, you have other restrictions imposed on you, like wearing a mask or a proof of vaccinationadds Beth Potter.

Canada remains the number one destination for Canadians in 2022, but even more than before the pandemic, says the president of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, Wendy Paradis.

People want to visit friends and family they haven’t seen. And there are people who are still comfortable with the idea of ​​staying in Canada, since the pandemic is not 100% behind us.she points out.

An interest in the Canadian North and northern British Columbia

As many Canadians choose to stay closer to home and interest in the Rockies remains high, bookings are up for less-explored places like northern British Columbia and Canada’s North, experts observe Of the industry.

We’ve seen Vancouver, we’ve seen Victoria, we love Whistler. Let’s just try to go somewhere elseillustrates marketing director Elyse Mailhot by repeating the process of thinking about her clients.

Near Yellowknife, Aurora Village, which used to host mainly East Asian tour groups, continues to receive visitors eager to admire the Northern Lights before returning to warm up in teepees outfitted with wood-burning stoves and blankets bison hide.

However, agencies are also seeing an increase in bookings for international destinations, from Italy to France to sun destinations.

Obstacles persist

Visits south of the Canadian border are also resuming. But a hurdle remains with US regulations that require air travelers to show a negative COVID-19 antigen or PCR test result taken no more than a day before departure.

This variable rather pushes vacationers who could go to Florida or California to Mexico or the Caribbean, says Beth Potter.

Congested airports, in part due to staffing shortages and testing procedures for COVID-19, present another obstacle for those who would like to travel by air. But with the lifting of many pandemic restrictions, demand can no longer be blocked, believes Marty Firestone, president of insurer Travel Secure.

I see her getting back to about her pre-pandemic level, as far as the coming summer goes.he says.

In the last week of April, nearly 460,000 travelers landed in Canada on international flights, more than 17 times the number of arrivals in the same week a year earlier. This still represents only two-thirds of the number of arrivals for the same week in 2019, according to the Canada Border Services Agency.