B.C. is welcoming a growing number of international visitors through its entry points and is on a path to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Visitors from mainland China are leading the surge.
That is important for tourism businesses because Destination BC data holds that mainland Chinese visitors were the highest-spending international visitors pre-pandemic, laying out an estimated $2,021 per person, according to the province’s tourism marketer.
The last time the number of international visitors to Canada through B.C. fell in a month year-over-year was October, when the count fell by 2.2 per cent.
Year-over-year monthly counts have since then been increasingly positive:
- up 3.5 per cent in November;
- up 15.6 per cent in December, and, according to the most recent data;
- up 18.9 per cent in January.
One factor driving B.C.'s resurgence in welcoming international visitors to Canada is a substantial increase in the number of Chinese nationals, driven largely by more non-stop flights between Vancouver International Airport (YVR) and mainland China.
The post-pandemic recovery in visits from mainland Chinese nationals to B.C. has been slower than that of any other nation, but those visits are rapidly increasing year-over-year, and still have a ways to go before matching pre-pandemic totals.
In January, B.C. welcomed 16,107 mainland Chinese nationals. That ranked behind only the 191,342 American overnight visitors and the 16,595 Australians as the most from any country.
The 16,107 count for mainland Chinese visitors in January was up a staggering 65.1 per cent year-over-year – the highest growth rate of any nation – from the 9,754 mainland Chinese visitors to B.C. in January 2024.
Unfortunately for tourism businesses, that number of visiting Chinese nationals is still down 40.4 per cent from January 2019.
A steady increase in the number of non-stop flights is likely a main reason for the resurgence in mainland Chinese visitors to Canada through B.C.
Back in October, some weeks had eight weekly non-stop flights from Vancouver International Airport to mainland China airports. That frequency increased to 21 flights per week each way in January before falling back to be 20 flights each way per week in March, according to the Vancouver Airport Authority.
This is still far short of the flight count pre-pandemic, when eight airlines flew a total of 55 non-stop flights each way per week between YVR and mainland China.
The schedule out of YVR, as of March 27, was:
- Sichuan Airlines twice weekly to Chengdu;
- Air Canada 5 times weekly to Beijing;
- Air Canada six to seven times weekly to Shanghai;
- Air China four times weekly to Beijing;
- Hainan Airlines once per week to Shenzhen; and
- Xiamen Airlines twice per week to Xiamen.
All combined, in October, the flights carried 2,491 weekly non-stop seats each way between YVR and mainland China. By January, the weekly seat-count was 6,338 seats each way, which then fell back to 5,954 seats per week each way in March, according to the Vancouver Airport Authority (VAA).
Pre-pandemic, airlines combined to provide 15,502 seats from Vancouver to China each way per week in November 2019, according to the VAA.
Mainland Chinese nationals’ visits to Canada through B.C. peaked in 2018, when 356,475 people arrived. Trips then fell by 6.4 per cent to 333,837 in 2019, according to Destination BC.
Last year, only 161,637 mainland Chinese nationals visited Canada through B.C. entry points, according to Destination BC.
Steady growth in Chinese visitors to Canada through B.C. entry points came in the decade preceding the pandemic.
New airline routes and increased flight frequency encouraged these visits.
China Southern Airlines (NYSE:ZNH) launched inaugural thrice-weekly flights in 2011, went to five times per week in 2012 and made its flights daily in 2013.
Sichuan Airlines launched flights in 2012 and longtime carriers Air China and China Eastern Airlines increased flight frequency by 2013.
When Xiamen Air launched flights to Vancouver in July 2016, it made Vancouver International Airport the only airport in the Americas and Europe to have five Chinese carriers with non-stop routes to China.
China’s Beijing Capital Airlines then launched non-stop flights to Vancouver in January 2017, and Hainan Airlines launched flights to Vancouver in May 2018.
The only Canadian carrier making non-stop flights to China pre-pandemic was Air Canada (TSX:AC), with 12 flights per week.
