The figures show a 7% increase in visitor numbers from 2015.
Air Canada rouge has announced non-stop flights from Glasgow to Toronto Pearson from June 14 to September 25.
The three-times-weekly flight will start from £400pp for a round trip.
WestJet will fly direct from Gatwick to six cities across Canada from May 6; a six times weekly to Vancouver, two times weekly to Edmonton, five times weekly to Calgary, once weekly to Winnipeg, a seven times weekly to Toronto and a full week of flights to Saint John’s. Journeys will be made in WestJet’s new Boeing 767 aircraft with prices between £137 and £205.
In 2015 Canada saw 740,000 air passengers arrive from the UK. Current trends for UK visitors show stay time in Canada at around 11 days with an average spend of £1,500.
Rendez-vous Canada 2016, the country’s largest tourism marketplace which took place in Montreal from April 25-27, had 60 UK tour operators in attendance.
Rupert Peters, regional managing director of Europe for Destination Canada, further explained the reasons for the projected growth.
He said: “Canada is selling well and we’ve got a perfect storm of opportunities here. The Canadian dollar is stronger; the UK economy is in a good place, increased air capacity helps and our destination marketing too.”
Marketing strategies include Destination Canada’s online agent training service, the Canada Specialist Programme. Consultants visit the site and complete modules in order to better educate themselves on the different regions of Canada. The site will be updated later this year with a focus on learning through videos.
Peters added: “We send influencers from the UK to Canada to promote the experience. Usually that is done through social media. We do also have traditional media partnerships with papers like the Guardian for instance.”
British tourists visiting Canada as a safe destination are responsible for this too increase, however Peters stressed that tourism can’t rely on this dynamic.
He said: “If people from the UK are looking for a safe place to visit there are a lot of destinations closer to home. The major influence for the growth is the new air lift and at the moment we are bang on target on reaching our numbers.”
