Times Colonist, September 22, 2011
Americans still travel abroad, just not to here
Conventional wisdom says Americans stopped travelling outside the U.S. after 9/11. Conventional wisdom says high ferry fares are keeping tourists away from Vancouver Island. Conventional wisdom is wrong, says Frank Bourree. Tourism analyst Bourree is a partner in Victoria's Chemistry Consulting, where they crunched 10 years worth of U.S. travel data and came up with some startling discoveries.
First, they found that Americans, at least the affluent ones, actually flew abroad more often in the decade after the towers fell. "Overall air travel by Americans to destinations outside of the U.S. increased by 11.1 per cent between 2001 and 2010." So much for the idea that Americans were all scared into their basements by Osama.
Alas, while Americans might have continued flying after 9/11, they stopped coming here: U.S. travel to Canada fell eight per cent.
The really glum news was the plunge in rubbertired traffic, the meat-andpotatoes tourists who account for the majority of visits. B.C. alone is down a stunning 2.5 million Americans a year from 2001.
"Overnight U.S. travel to B.C. decreased by 20.5 per cent, while same-day U.S. travel decreased by 54.4 per cent, during this same period." That's more than half the day-trippers gone, poof.
"That's all about passports, lineups and the price of gas, as well as the economy and their own disposable income," Bourree says. When the U.S. tightened its requirement for bordercrossing documents, it was no big deal to air travellers, who tended to own passports anyway.
