Canadian tourists up spending

Tourism spending in Canada continues to recover from the lows it reached five years ago, when the SARS scare kept visitors away.

However, most of the money spent by travellers came out of Canadian pockets last year, according to data Statistics Canada released yesterday. Nationally, tourism spending increased by 1.4% in the last three months of 2007, bringing growth in tourism spending for the entire year to 4.3%.

Spending by international and Canadian travellers totalled $70.6 billion last year, of which domestic tourists spent nearly four out of every five dollars, or 77%.

That's up noticeably from the late '90s, when Canadians accounted for 66% of tourism dollars spent in Canada.

In Calgary, most of the money spent by visitors also came from domestic wallets.

Tourism Calgary data -- their most recent data only goes back to 2004 -- shows domestic visitors consistently account for between 70% and 73% of the money tourists spend in town.

In 2004, for example, total visitor spending equalled $977 million, of which domestic visitors spent $715 million.

"That ratio holds up pretty solid," said Alex Graham, Tourism Calgary's CEO.

Low unemployment and growth in disposable income were the main factors boosting national numbers last year, said Statistics Canada.

But Canadians didn't just travel in their own backyard.

Travel outside the country, said Statistics Canada, rose by 9% in the last three months of 2007, the strongest quarterly gain in 16 years.