{"id":1483,"date":"2020-09-18T16:37:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T16:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/chapter\/canada-overview\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T18:59:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:59:58","slug":"canada-overview","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/chapter\/canada-overview\/","title":{"raw":"1.3 Canada Overview","rendered":"1.3 Canada Overview"},"content":{"raw":"

Origins of Tourism in Canada<\/h1>\r\nTourism has long been a source of economic development for our country. Some argue that as early as 1534 the explorers of the day, such as\u00a0Jacques Cartier, were Canada's first tourists (Dawson, 2004), but most agree the major developments in Canada's\u00a0tourism industry followed milestones in the transportation sector: by\u00a0rail, by car, and eventually, in the skies.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[h5p id=\"3\"]\r\n\r\nAn accessible version of this activity is provided in the back matter of the book: Origins of Tourism in Canada Timeline<\/a>\r\n

Railway Travel: The Ties That Bind<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1482\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"500\"]\"A Figure 1.5 Canadian Pacific 4-4-0 A-2-m, No. 136.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe dawn of the railway age in Canada came midway through the 19th century. The first railway was launched in 1836 (Library and Archives Canada, n.d.),\u00a0and by the onset of World\u00a0War I in 1914, four railways dominated the Canadian landscape: [pb_glossary id=\"2523\"]Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR)[\/pb_glossary], Canadian Northern Railway (CNOR),\u00a0the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR), and the Grand Trunk Pacific (GTP). Unfortunately, their rapid expansion soon brought the last three into near bankruptcy (Library and Archives Canada, n.d.).\r\n\r\nIn 1923, these three rail companies were amalgamated into the Canadian National Railway (CNR), and together with the CPR, these trans-continentals dominated the Canadian travel landscape until\u00a0other forms of transportation became more popular. In 1978, with declining interest in rail travel, the CPR and CNR were forced to combine their passenger services to form VIA Rail (Library and Archives Canada, n.d.).\r\n

The Rise of the Automobile<\/h2>\r\nThe rising popularity of car travel was\u00a0partially to blame for the decline in rail travel, although it took time to develop. When the\u00a0first cross-country road\u00a0trip took place in 1912, there were only\u00a016 kilometres\u00a0of paved road across Canada\u00a0(MacEachern,\u00a02012). Cars were initially considered\u00a0a nuisance, and the National Parks Branch banned entry of automobiles,\u00a0but later slowly began to embrace them. By\u00a0the 1930s, some parks, such as\u00a0Cape Breton Highlands National Park, were actually created to provide visitors with scenic drives\u00a0(MacEachern,\u00a02012).\r\n\r\nIt would take decades before a coast-to-coast highway was created, with the Trans-Canada Highway officially opening in Revelstoke in 1962. When it was fully completed in 1970, it was the longest national highway in the world, spanning one-fifth of the globe (MacEachern,\u00a02012).\r\n

Early Tourism Promotion<\/h2>\r\nAs early as 1892, enterprising Canadians like the Brewsters became the country's first tour operators, leading guests through areas such as Banff National Park (Brewster Travel Canada, 2014). Communities across Canada developed their own marketing strategies as transportation development took hold. For instance, the\u00a0town of Maisonneuve in Quebec launched a campaign from 1907 to 1915 calling itself \"Le Pittsburg du Canada.\" By\u00a01935, Quebec was spending $250,000 promoting tourism. Other provinces such as Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia followed suit, also enjoying the benefits of establishing provincial tourism bureaus (Dawson, 2004).\r\n

National Airlines<\/h2>\r\nOur national airline, Air Canada, was formed in 1937 as Trans-Canada Air Lines. In many ways, Air Canada was a world leader in passenger aviation, introducing\u00a0the world\u2019s first computerized reservations system in 1963 (Globe and Mail<\/em>, 2014).\u00a0Through the 1950s and 1960s, reduced\u00a0airfares saw increased mass travel.\u00a0Competitors\u00a0including\u00a0Canadian Pacific (which became Canadian Airlines in 1987) began to launch international flights during this time to Australia, Japan, and South America (Canadian Geographic, <\/em>2000).\u00a0By 2000, Air Canada was facing\u00a0financial peril and forced to restructure. A numbered company, owned in part by Air Canada, purchased 82% of Canadian Airline\u2019s shares, with the result of\u00a0Air Canada becoming the country\u2019s only national airline (Canadian Geographic, <\/em>2000).\u00a0The 2000s saw Air Canada experiencing a roller-coaster performance from verging near bankruptcy in 2002, to reorganizations and fleet modernizations up to 2007, and another downturn due to the global recession in 2008 (ACE Aviation, 2011; Air Canada, 2007; CBC News, 2009).\u00a0 Air Canada experienced a number of transformations from interior and interior aircraft redesigns and further fleet upgrades from 2013 to 2017 (Air Canada, 2016).\u00a0 Once a rival airline, Air Transat was subsequently taken over by Air Canada in 2019 (CBC News, 2019).\u00a0 The near halt of the global tourism industry during the pandemic of COVID-19 in 2020 severely affected Air Canada, which posted a whopping $1 billion loss in its first quarter, cutting thousands of jobs, slashing 90% of its flight schedule, and foreseeing a tough and later rebound (Reynolds, 2020).\r\n

Parks and Protected Areas<\/h2>\r\nA look at the evolution of tourism in Canada would be incomplete without a quick study of our national parks and protected areas. The official\u00a0conservation of our natural spaces began around the same time as the railway boom, and\u00a0in 1885 Banff was established as Canada's first national park.\u00a0By 1911, the Dominion Forest Reserves and Parks Act created the Dominion Parks Branch, the first of its kind in the world (Shoalts,\u00a02011).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1482\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"500\"]\"Canoes Figure 1.6 Moraine Lake in the Canadian Rockies.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe systemic conservation and celebration of Canada's parks over the next century would help shape Canada's identity, both at home and abroad. Through the 1930s, conservation officers and interpreters were hired to enhance visitor experiences. By 1970, the\u00a0National Park System Plan divided\u00a0Canada into 39 regions, with the goal of preserving each distinct ecosystem for future generations. In 1987, the country's first\u00a0national marine park was\u00a0established in Ontario,\u00a0and in the 20 years that followed, 10 new national\u00a0parks and marine conservation areas\u00a0were created (Shoalts,\u00a02011).\r\n\r\nThe role of parks and protected areas in tourism is explored in greater detail in Chapter 5<\/a> (Recreation) and Chapter 10<\/a> (Environmental Stewardship).\r\n

Global Shock\u00a0and Industry Decline<\/h2>\r\nAs with the global industry, Canada's tourism industry was impacted by world events such as the Great Depression, the World Wars, socio-political turmoil, and global outbreak of disease.\r\n\r\nGlobal events such as 9\/11, the SARS outbreak, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the economic recession of 2008 took their toll on tourism receipts\u00a0but have successfully seen short-term rebounds. However, nothing has been more impactful to the tourism industry as the corona virus of 2019 (COVID-19), which was first found in China in late 2019 and eventually declared as a pandemic by March 2020 as it spread globally.\u00a0 Tourism was placed in a standstill as global travel restrictions were imposed to prevent the spread of infection. Aggravated with a nose dive of consumer confidence in travel, many tourism businesses and operators big and small were forced to close. The [pb_glossary id=\"2981\"]UNWTO[\/pb_glossary] predicted a 60% to 70% drop in tourist numbers, as well as a loss of a staggering USD 910 billion to USD 1.2 trillion in export revenues, and up to 120 million jobs put at risk (UNWTO, 2020b). According to the UNWTO (2020b), COVID-19 created the worst crisis in the history of global tourism since records began in 1950.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1482\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\"]\"A Figure 1.7 Travellers wearing face masks in Marina Bay, Singapore.[\/caption]\r\n

Tourism in Canada Prior to COVID-19<\/h1>\r\nIn 2018, tourism created $102 billion in total economic activity and 1.8 million jobs according to the [pb_glossary id=\"2953\"]Tourism Industry Association of Canada [\/pb_glossary] (2018a). Up to 2019, Canadian tourism reached its 3rd consecutive year of breaking records by welcoming 22.1 million inbound visitors (TIAC, 2020). Tourism is a major player in the workforce, where 1 in 11 jobs in the country is directly involved with travellers, as stated by TIAC (2018a).\r\n
\r\n\r\nSpotlight On: The Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC)<\/strong>\r\n\r\nFounded in 1930 and based in Ottawa, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) <\/strong>is the national private-sector advocate for the industry. Its\u00a0goal is to support policies and programs that help the industry grow, while representing over 400 members including airports, concert halls, festivals and events, travel services providers, and businesses of all sizes. For more information, visit\u00a0the Tourism Industry Association of Canada's website<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nThe United States is Canada's biggest tourism market, which we welcome more than all international travellers combined. Thanks to our immediate proximity, open borders, and ease of travel, we are actually both each other's top market. As 68% of all inbound visitors to Canada in 2018, American travellers are also big spenders at $663 per trip and typically seek natural attractions, historical sites, and food and drink when they enter the country (TIAC, 2018b).\r\n\r\nAside from the United States, Canada continues to see strong visitation from\u00a0the\u00a0United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Brazil, and China. In 2018, we welcomed 6.9 million travellers (excluding the US), more that doubling since 2011 (Statistics Canada, 2019).\u00a0Canadians travelling domestically accounted for 78% of tourism revenues in the country, though spend less at $244 per trip (TIAC, 2018c).\r\n
\r\n\r\nSpotlight On:\u00a0Destination Canada<\/strong>\r\n\r\nHoused in Vancouver, Destination Canada<\/strong>, previously the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), is responsible for promoting Canada as a tourist destination both within Canada itself and to and to several foreign markets. Currently focused on ten international core markets for international marketing: Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Destination Canada also is responsible for proving intelligence, tools and resources to support Canada's tourism industry from coast to coast. Lastly, Destination Canada works with private companies, travel services providers, meeting professionals, and government organizations to help leverage Canada\u2019s tourism brand, For Glowing Hearts<\/em>. For more information, visit the Destination Canada corporate website<\/a> and Destination Canada's traveler website.<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nAs organizations like TIAC work to confront barriers to travel,\u00a0[pb_glossary id=\"2435\"]Destination Canada[\/pb_glossary] is active abroad, encouraging more visitors to explore our country. In Chapter 8<\/a>, we'll delve more into\u00a0the challenges and triumphs\u00a0of selling tourism at home and abroad.\r\n\r\n[h5p id=\"4\"]\r\n\r\nThe great news for British Columbia\u00a0is that once in Canada, most international visitors tend to remain in the province they landed in, and BC is\u00a0one of three provinces that receives the bulk of this traffic (Destination Canada, 2019). In fact, BC's tourism industry is one of the healthiest in Canada today. Let's have a look at how our provincial industry was established and where it stands now.\r\n

Media Attributions<\/h3>\r\n