Ottawa prepares for tourism season as U.S. trips to Canada increase

As new data from Statistics Canada shows more Americans are visiting Canada, CTV’s Camille Wilson previews Ottawa’s tourism season.

New data from Statistics Canada shows trips north of the border by American residents have increased year over year by 5.9 per cent.

The data shows arrivals by automobile were up 6.8 per cent and arrivals by air increased 4.8 per cent year over year.

The increase relates to cross-border regions, but Ottawa Tourism says that while visits from Americans remain down, they are “well positioned to welcome more U.S. visitors back” to the capital region.

“Ottawa Tourism is heartened by this trend in the overall U.S. market share for Canadian tourism,” said Ottawa Tourism in a statement to CTV News.

Ottawa Tourism says U.S. visitors stayed longer and spent 15 per cent more during their trips to the nation’s capital.

The capital’s tour companies are preparing for the upcoming tourism season and say they have seen an uptick in business.

“We have our tulip festival pre-bookings coming in and honestly, it’s looking pretty good. We’re actually up 30 per cent from last year on the pre-bookings,” said Leon Harris, co-owner of Lady Dive and Grayline Ottawa.

Despite the political trade tensions between Canada and the United States, Americans say they are happy to travel to Canada.

“I’m not afraid to travel. Honestly, I don’t think just the political scene necessarily reflects the people of Canada or the U.S., so we can 100 per cent be friendly neighbours,” said Sarah Fergerson, visiting Ottawa from Syracuse, N.Y.

Jennifer Siedlicki is visiting from Syracuse and came to Ottawa to celebrate her 40^th birthday with friends.

“Wanted somewhere different. Somewhere new. somewhere fun,” said Siedlicki.

Joshua Fuller, visiting from Utica, N.Y. with his parents, visited Ottawa last year for the first time. After making a friend in Ottawa, they became big fans of the city and the local sports teams.

“We came for the women’s hockey and we support the women’s hockey league and we kind of adopted the Charge because we came up here last year and that became our team. We befriended a really wonderful person named Heather. She’s from Ontario and she’s actually been my mom’s pen pal,” Fuller said.

“We were able to befriend somebody so quick because there’s an openness and sometimes it’s fairly foreign to us in the states. Here, it was very welcoming.”

Kathleen Fuller, Joshua’s mom, says they feel very welcomed and safe here.

“We love Canada. We love America. We don’t love what’s going on there. We’re not a fan of who is running our country,” she said.

The mother-son duo says Canada is filled with beautiful scenery, polite people and much to do.

“Politics don’t represent the people, right? We’re all individuals. We all understand to a degree what’s right and wrong. I think the principles of understanding that or having the awareness of what right and wrong is the best human approach,” said Joshua Fuller.

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