Statistics Canada’s latest international travel figures for November, 2012 show modest growth from both the United States and long-haul markets.

The U.S. market continues to grow gently, with a 1.2% increase in U.S. visitors over the same month in 2011 to 590,000 and a 2.3% increase in arrivals from the U.S. year-to-date (January to November) to 11.1 million.

Visits from countries other than the U.S. also grew modestly, with November 2012 arrivals 1.8% higher than November 2011 and year-to-date figures for long-haul markets up by 0.7% to 4.15 million arrivals.

Overall, international arrivals are up by 1.8% year-to-date, to 15,254,000 arrivals in the first 11 months of the year, a jump of about 275,000 visitors.

It should be noted that while the latest figures show a lot of promise, particularly in the emerging markets of China, Brazil, Mexico and India, the 1.8% growth still falls well behind the global pace of 4% growth in tourism arrivals, a difference of 325,000 potential additional visitors.

Among the countries (other than the U.S.) posting notable gains in November:

• France (+8.6% month-over-month*, but -0.6% year-to-date**);
• China (+4.5% month-over-month, +20% year-to-date);
• Japan (+7.4% month-over-month, +10% year-to-date);
• Mexico (+4.0% month-over-month, +8.7% year-to-date);
• Brazil (+65% month-over-month, +7.6% year-to-date);
• South Korea (+1.9% month-over-month, but -4.1% year-to-date);
• Australia (+10.1% month-over-month, + 7.1% year-to-date)

However, these gains were offset by declines from:

• Germany (-0.5% month-over-month, -3.2% year-to-date);
• United Kingdom (-3.7% month-over-month, -8.2% year-to-date); and
• India (-7.9% month-over-month, but +7.0% year-to-date)

*November 2012 versus November 2011
**January through November 2012 versus January through November 2011