Canada’s Tourism Sector Sees Record-Breaking Summer

Canada’s tourism sector achieved a record-breaking summer in 2025, with revenue between May and August reaching nearly $60 billion. This strong performance, representing a 6% year-over-year increase, was defined by robust demand that successfully spread economic benefits across the entire country, according to a press release from Destination Canada.

The record revenue was driven by a strong base of Canadian travellers who chose to explore the 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 a 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 the 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 $58.96 billion total is a Destination Canada preliminary estimate, derived from LASR, National Tourism Indicators and Statistics Canada.