Canada’s travel and tourism sector will edge closer to pre-pandemic activity levels this year, but it won’t return to 2019 numbers until next year as pent-up demand is released across the world, the report said. the World Travel and Tourism Council on Friday.
Posted at 1:42 p.m.
The international trade group projects that economic output from travel and tourism in Canada will reach $138 billion in 2022, or 88% of its pre-pandemic value.
This amount should reach 157 billion in 2023, practically on par with that of 158.1 billion in 2019.
Council chief executive Julia Simpson says businesses can finally breathe a sigh of relief as the sector recovers from two years of border restrictions and plummeting demand.
Canada’s tourism industry lost 300,000 of its 1.7 million jobs in 2020, before regaining more than a third of them last year.
But the organization calculates that employment levels are only expected to increase by 3% this year, to 1.5 million jobs in total.