Canada: More cross-border shopping for less expensive airline tickets

When Canadians start making their travel plans this year, the first place more than a third of them will be going to is the U.S. to buy cheaper airline tickets says data released from the Hotel Association of Canada’s (HAC) 2012 Canadian Travel Intentions Survey. Fifteen per cent of survey respondents said they travelled to the U.S. for cheaper airline tickets in 2011, with the highest numbers coming from the provinces of Ontario (21%) and British Columbia (19%) and in the 35-44 age category (23%). A further thirty three per cent said they plan on cross border shopping for cheaper air fares in 2012 and an alarming sixty seven per cent of respondents said they knew people who travelled to the U.S. in 2011 to purchase cheaper airline tickets. “Almost half of all Canadians are now either travelling to the U.S. for deals on airline tickets or thinking about doing it in 2012 and almost seven in ten Canadians know people who have cross border shopped for cheaper airline tickets,” said Tony Pollard, President of the Hotel Association of Canada. “This trend is the result of the mounting burden of taxes and fees imposed on the aviation sector that discourages competition and drives up costs including airport rents, Air Traveller Security charges, NAV CANADA fees and airport improvement fees. This trend amounts to millions of Canadian travellers finding the price of Canadian tickets more expensive than the cost of driving to the U.S. and flying from airports like Buffalo, Detroit, Plattsburg, Bellingham, Bangor, Seattle, Syracuse or Grand Forks.” The HAC believes that the travel and tourism sector requires a fair tax and regulatory regime that allows it to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the world and recommends that the federal government undertake a comprehensive review of the aviation cost structure in Canada. The survey of Canadian travellers is the eighth annual Canadian Travel Intentions study undertaken by the Hotel Association of Canada. This survey was fielded by Opinion Search and defines a traveller as someone who will stay at least one night in a hotel, motel or resort. The online survey was conducted in the last week of January and first week of February 2012 among 1518 “likely travellers” with a margin of error of +/- 2.5%.

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