Vancouver, British Columbia – 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 inter-provincial travel spending. 

Rising international interest also powered the record summer, particularly from overseas markets, where visitor spend surged 10.4%. Overall, visitors are spending more per trip, resulting in higher yield this summer.

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 6.9% 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. Mid-summer results also point to the catalytic impact of the Canada Strong Pass, which helped drive increased visitation to museums and Parks Canada sites.
• 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 7.6% 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 across summer was observed for Manitoba, Vancouver Island, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. 

The full breakdown of who contributed to Canada’s nearly $60B summer is below.
 

The overall strength, resilience, and geographic reach achieved this summer point to a new phase of opportunity for Canada's tourism sector.

The $58.96B total is a Destination Canada preliminary estimate, derived from LASR, National Tourism Indicators, and Statistics Canada

To book interviews or for more information, please contact: Nicole Clark at mediarelations@DestinationCanada.com. 

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.

www.destinationcanada.com

This press release was originally published by The Wire on October 30^th, 2025. Read the original here.