Canadian Tourism Delivers Almost $60B This Summer, Driving National Wealth and Unprecedented Dispersion Across the Country Français
VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 30, 2025 /CNW/ - Canada's tourism sector achieved a record-breaking summer in 2025, with revenue between May and August reaching nearly $60B. This strong performance, representing a 6% year-over-year increase, was defined by robust demand that successfully spread economic benefits across the entire country.
The record revenue was driven by a strong base of Canadian travellers who chose to explore our country like never before, with the highest domestic growth coming from Canadians travelling outside of their home province.
Rising international interest also powered the record summer, particularly from overseas markets, where visitor spend surged 10%. Overall, international visitors are spending more per trip, resulting in higher yield this summer.
The Canadian tourism sector's total revenue between May and August 2025 was $59B, with $44.4B coming from Canadian travellers and $14.6B coming from international travellers.
The Numbers Behind Canada's Record Summer
- Tourism Grew Across the Country: Tourism growth proved to be a "truly national economic contribution." The impact was broad-based, with 89% of Canadian regions posting year-over-year growth.
- Standout Regional Growth: Notably, 59% of regions outperformed the average growth of Canada's major metro areas, demonstrating a successful dispersion of tourism, including overseas travellers. Atlantic Canada, in particular, emerged as a standout performer, posting some of the highest growth rates in the country.
- Domestic Tourism Spending Surge: Domestic tourism spending grew 7% year over year in summer 2025, reflecting Canadians' enthusiasm for exploring their own backyard. Notably, inter-provincial spending recorded a higher year-over-year increase than intra-provincial spending, highlighting a growing appetite to travel farther afield.
- Record Accommodation Strength: The accommodation sector showed broad gains across Canada, both in rural and urban locations.
- National hotel occupancy reached 80.7% in August 2025, the highest since 2014. Both hotel and short-term rental occupancies grew nationally over the summer, despite expanded supply, a clear sign of stronger travel demand.
- Hotel Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) for Canadian hotels rose 6.6% overall over the summer.
- In keeping with the pan-Canadian tourism summer boom, regions outside major cities also enjoyed increased demand. The highest increase in occupancy this summer was observed for Manitoba, Vancouver Island, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
The overall strength, resilience, and geographic reach achieved this summer point to a new phase of opportunity for Canada's tourism sector.
Note to Editors: Destination Canada's $59B estimate in tourism revenue for the summer period was developed using data from its Lodging Aligned Spending Report (LASR) and Statistics Canada's National Tourism Indicators and Leading Indicators. The estimate was further validated against industry statistics from the accommodation sector.
About Destination Canada
At Destination Canada, we believe that tourism enhances the wealth and wellbeing of Canadians and enriches the lives of visitors. Our mission is to influence supply and build demand for the benefit of locals, communities and visitors through leading research, alignment with public and private sectors, and marketing Canada nationally and abroad.
Tourism contributes $130B to the Canadian economy. That's more than $350M a day in revenue powered by 265,000 businesses in 5,000 communities coast to coast to coast. Destination Canada's activities convert public dollars into international visitor spending within the same year--creating jobs, GDP, and tax revenues almost immediately. Every dollar invested in DC turns into a demonstrable financial return for Canadian businesses, workers, communities, and governments.
Knowing that diversity is our greatest asset, we promote Canada as a premier four-season leisure and business tourism destination around the country and world in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, United Kingdom and the United States. Additionally, our Business Events team uses global insights to target and attract international events aligned with Canada's top economic sectors.
Destination Canada is a Crown corporation wholly owned by the Government of Canada.
SOURCE Destination Canada
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