Canadians Still Vacationing

This past Monday, we blogged about a new study that found that the majority of Canadians are likely to go out of their way to support local businesses. As we have proudly mentioned before, small businesses in Canada are big reasons why the national economy has been able to bounce back so well from the recession.

The article we reviewed on Monday is just one of many reports that help to showcase Canada’s strong economic rebounding skills. Promising news has continued to pour in this week, as on Tuesday, QMI Agency reported that Canadians are looking past the woes of the recession and are living life fairly normally.

In fact, a new BMO poll has determined that nearly two-thirds of Canadians still plan on taking a vacation either this fall or winter. According to the poll, 61 per cent plan on taking a holiday while 79 per cent took a vacation this past summer. It also found that 20 per cent of those traveling intend on taking advantage of the strong Canadian dollar while on their trips.

The post popular destination, however, is the United States. So it doesn’t seem like many Canadians plan on traveling too far from home. According to QMI: “Younger Canadians were twice as likely to travel outside the country than those over 44 years old, the poll found. Almost a fifth of the under-44s were planning to head to the U.S.”

It is notable that the recent economic downturn has not grounded us Canucks. Somehow, our nation’s citizens have found a way to make it through the recession in better shape than their American counterparts. In fact, only 13 per cent of those polled indicated that they would need to use their reward points to lower their vacation costs.

In another interesting find, 19 per cent of those with incomes more than $100,000 said that they would use reward points to economize. Evidently, those with money know how to use it wisely! This concept, of course, rings close to home with our funding specialists who are always assisting business owners with ideas on how to use money to make money!

Su McVey, the vice-president of customer communications and marketing at BMO, would agree. Said McVey: “In today’s economic environment, I would encourage every Canadian vacationer to take full advantage of their travel-related rewards to reduce their holiday expenses.”