Consumer Confidence High in Most Canadian Provinces

For Canadian travel advisors to do well, Canadians across the board need to be feeling confident about their ability to earn money, Wendy Paradis, president of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies and Travel Advisors (ACTA), told some 300 travel advisors at last week’s Travel Market Place in Vancouver.

Consumer confidence, she said, is very high across most of Canada, and “travel intentions for Canadians remain very strong throughout the winter and going into the rest of 2024.”

Provinces with the highest consumer confidence
Three provinces lead the rest of the country in terms of consumer confidence, according to March 1 data from the Conference Board of Canada, starting with Atlantic Canada, which boats a consumer confidence of 85%.

Not far behind is Quebec at 84% and British Columbia at 81%.

On the other end of the spectrum, Ontario dropped down to 59%. Alberta, Paradis said, had the lowest consumer confidence in the country, though she didn’t say what the number was.

Top travel destinations for Canadians
“When you’re thinking about your professional development, it’s good to think about where Canadians want to go,” Paradis told the audience.

Most of the destinations Canadians want to visit are the same as always. Number one on the list is the United States, followed by Mexico, and then Europe.

In Europe, the top three destinations – France, U.K. and Italy – haven’t changed for many years, but two new destinations have broken into the top five. These are Spain and Portugal.

“Portugal has the biggest increase, percentage-wise, for Canadians,” she said.

In the Caribbean and Mexico, Mexico remains the number one destination, with 2.3 million Canadians having visited Mexico in 2023. In second and third place are the Dominican Republic and Cuba, respectively, with each having seen about one million Canadian visitors. Far behind, but in the number four spot is Jamaica, which received some 371,000 Canadian visitors in 2023.

“Costa Rica is the hot destination. It’s now number five and is growing every single year,” Paradis said.