It's that time of the month. StatCan's Advance Travel Information numbers for August 2008 are out. USA? Still down. But Overseas doing very well.

Statistics Canada released inbound tourism numbers for August 2008. Not surprisingly, inbound from the US continues to decline. Since August 2001, visits from the US have dropped approximately 50%, a staggering number, that's about sixteen million less visitors.

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While not making up completely for lost US visits, Overseas inbound markets continue to do rather well, except for Asia, where Japan also continues to drop (down about 30% since 2001). All regions showed growth except Asia which saw a drop of 3.2% in August compared to August 2007.

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The Stars

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What single country showed the highest growth rate in August 2008 compared to the same month last year? Mexico? Good guess, but no. Mexico slowed down a bit this past August growing only 4.4% (11.2% Jan to Aug). The UK? Not at all. The UK is showing signs of stress. It was down 7.3% compared to Aug 2007. Germany? Nope. While it did well growing 6.1% this past August, Germany is not the big star. France you say, it must be France. Good guess, given all the promotion and publicity there generated by Quebec's 400th Birthday. France grew an amazing 30.7% in August. But no, it was not France. The country that showed the biggest percentage increase in inbound tourism to Canada last August was SPAIN. Spaniards are taking a liking to Canada. It must be word of mouth and online properties like CanadaenEspanol and CanadAmigos, since very little marketing is being done there by Canadian tourism organizations. SPAIN grew a staggering 31% in August 2008 compared to August 2007. While the absolute numbers are not huge. This is just a signal of what future numbers could be. SPAIN can become another Mexico for Canadian Tourism if enough Canadian Tourism organizatons get together to market our destinations properly. Canadá en Español (Cactus Rock New Media Ltd.) is forming an alliance with a Destination PR and Marketing firm in Madrid in order to offer cost accessible PR, Marketing and sales representation services in Spain.

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Olé
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Jaime Horwitz
www.cactusrock.com
www.canadamigos.com

Jaime Horwitz with his daughter Madison in Ronda, Andalucía, Spain. Summer 2005