Summary
Paraphrasing President Bill Clinton's campaign strategist, James Carville... It is the Loonie stupid! It is also the economy, price of gas. The reverse phenomenon is occurring in the US...where it is the dollar stupid!
Analysis
It is a very simple explanation why travel is down to Canada. The Loonie is, for the first time in years, on par with the US Dollar and in fact, has been running higher than the dollar. With a weaker than Loonie dollar, one would expect travel to be down YOY from the US. Moreover, while the US dollar has gotten weaker the Canadian dollar, has become stronger in the world, making travel there less of a bargain for discretionary travelers than it was previously.
Conversely, because of the weaker dollar, International Travel to the US is showing strong YOY growth. If you are in the UK, America is basically having a half price sale on everything! If you are in Europe coming here, you are enjoying a 35% sale. That is despite the economy and the cost of fuel, which, at these exchange rates, is (and as hard as it is to imagine,) a real bargain indeed for the Europeans in particular.
Thus, even with the high cost of fuel, a slowing (if not recessionary) economy, weak dollar and housing slump, there are bright spots. In this case, the strong Canadian Dollar is hurting "inbound" travel to Canada, whereby the weak US Dollar is driving the inbound international travel. This is just another case of the economic forces behaving in a very predictable manner.
