Tourism spending may recover sooner than expected

VANCOUVER - Tourism spending in Canada is expected to recover sooner than previously anticipated.

Destination Canada published its latest tourism outlook today, which says it predicts tourism spending to recover to 2019 levels by 2024, up from 2025 as predicted last spring.

The government organization says that Canada's domestic travel market spending is recovering at an even faster pace and is expected to reach 92 per cent of 2019 levels in 2022 and fully recover in 2023.

It says the U.S. market is positioned to grow with spending reaching 91 per cent of 2019 levels in 2023 and expects a full economic recovery by 2024.

Destination Canada chief executive Marsha Walden says international revenue will be slower to recover due to stalls from the global recession and pandemic restrictions and should reach 2019 spending levels by 2025.

According to the report, Canada’s tourism sector could generate more than $142 billion by 2030, a 35 per cent growth over the course of the next decade.