Destination Canada’s Tourism Data Collective reports growth in arrivals, revenue, employment and business counts, with uneven results by sub-sector and source market.
The Canadian Tourism Data Collective publishes a Tourism Performance Indicators dashboard tracking the health of Canada’s tourism sector across six metrics: international overnight arrivals, tourism revenue, active tourism businesses, hotel occupancy, tourism employment, and job vacancy rates. The dashboard also reports the Resident Sentiment Index, measuring Canadian residents’ attitudes toward tourism.
The indicators are organized around four categories — Economy, Enablement, Employment, and Engagement — the same structure reflected in the Data Collective’s Tourism Wealth & Wellbeing Index. That index aligns with the United Nations’ Measuring Sustainability in Tourism (MST) framework and supports the Sustainable Development Goals by measuring tourism’s economic, social, and environmental impacts.
The following summarizes the Tourism Performance Indicators dashboard for Q1 2026 (with data available at mid-July 2026). Reporting periods vary by indicator, and because the dashboard is live and refreshed as new data is released, the figures below may change.
Arrivals
Year-to-date international overnight arrivals reached 4.26 million through April 2026, 2.5 percent above the same period in 2025. April results were moderated by calendar effects: Easter fell in late March this year compared with mid-April in 2025, contributing to year-over-year declines from the U.K. (-24 percent), Germany (-8 percent), and Mexico (-4 percent) for the month.
Year-to-date growth is led by the U.S. (+3.3 percent) and by key overseas markets including South Korea (+17.2 percent), Japan (+10.7 percent), Mexico (+9.8 percent), and Australia (+8.9 percent). Arrivals from China (-5.0 percent) and other overseas markets (-1.5 percent) remain below 2025 levels, indicating continued headwinds in some long-haul markets.
Tourism revenue
Total tourism revenue reached $29.5 billion in Q1 2026, a 5.6 percent increase over Q1 2025. International spending grew 7.6 percent and domestic spending 5.2 percent, with domestic accounting for $23.5 billion of the total. Food and beverage (+8.4 percent) and accommodation (+6.3 percent) recorded the largest year-over-year increases, though transportation spending (+5.8 percent) contributed the most to the overall gain, as it represents 42 percent of total tourism spending.
Active tourism businesses
The number of active tourism businesses increased 1.3 percentage points in Q1 2026 relative to Q1 2025, while the broader Canadian economy declined 0.3 points. Growth was concentrated in food and beverage services (+1.7 p.p.), transportation (+1.1 p.p.), and recreation and entertainment (+0.7 p.p.); travel services continued to decline (-1.4 p.p.).
As of March 2026, active tourism businesses stood 1.5 percentage points above pre-pandemic levels (index 101.5), though recovery remains uneven across sub-sectors. Food and beverage services (+3.9 p.p.) and accommodation (+1.4 p.p.) sit above their pre-pandemic baselines and recreation and entertainment is at pre-pandemic level, while travel services (-19.4 p.p.) and transportation (-9.9 p.p.) remain well below.
Hotel occupancy
Year-to-date average hotel occupancy through May 2026 was 60.9 percent, 0.7 percentage points above the same period in 2025 and 0.5 points above 2019. In May alone, national occupancy averaged 71.3 percent — 2.8 points above the May 2019 baseline and 1.0 point above May 2025. Performance exceeded pre-pandemic levels across all property types, including resorts (+4.9 p.p.), small metro and town (+3.2 p.p.), and urban properties (+0.6 p.p.).
Employment
Year-to-date tourism employment through May 2026 expanded 1.5 percent over the same period in 2025 and surpassed pre-pandemic levels by 2.3 percent. Over the same period, tourism employment grew faster than the Canadian economy overall, which grew 0.3 percent. As of May 2026, the sector employed approximately 2.19 million people, up 2.2 percent from May 2025 and 3.0 percent above May 2019.
The tourism job vacancy rate averaged 3.4 percent in Q1 2026, unchanged from Q1 2025 and 0.7 percentage points above the national rate of 2.7 percent. The rate declined 0.7 points relative to Q1 2019, indicating that labour shortages in tourism have continued to moderate from their post-pandemic peak.
Resident sentiment
Canadian residents’ general sentiment toward tourism declined 1.0 point year-to-date (January–May 2026) compared with the same period in 2025, and 3.5 points in May 2026 relative to May 2025. Canada continues to outperform global benchmarks on general sentiment (63.6 versus 50.0) and tourism growth support (61.2 versus 60.0), and reports lower levels of tourismphobia (2.6 versus 5.0).
These indicators describe a sector growing steadily and outpacing the broader Canadian economy on both business formation and employment, with hotel demand strengthening ahead of the summer season. Recovery remains uneven across sub-sectors and source markets, and resident sentiment has softened year over year.
The dashboard supports filtering by origin market, expenditure category, tourism sub-sector, and time period, allowing organizations to interrogate the data and benchmark local performance against national trends.
Explore the live data: The Tourism Performance Indicators dashboard is a live, publicly available tool updated as new data is released. The figures above represent a snapshot at mid-July 2026 and may change.
Learn more about the Canada Tourism Data Collective’s Tourism’s Wealth & Wellbeing Index.
