PEI

P.E.I. welcomed more vacationing Maritimers in August

The tourism industry on P.E.I. saw a small recovery in August, with more Maritimers coming to the Island for holidays.

Tourism still less than half what it was in 2019

Many fewer Maritime visitors took the bridge or ferry to P.E.I. from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia this summer, despite the Atlantic bubble. August numbers were not as bad as July's compared to 2019, though. (Carolyn Ryan/CBC)

The tourism industry on P.E.I. saw a small recovery in August, with more Maritimers coming to the Island for holidays.

The province's tourism indicators report for August still shows significant decreases in Maritime travellers compared to 2019, but the drop for the month was far less than the one registered in July.

Total overnight stays by travellers from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in July were about one-half what they were in 2019. In August, the statistic was down by one-quarter compared to the year before.

Hopes for a boost from staycations did not materialize. Total overnight stays by P.E.I. residents were a little below the level seen in 2019.

With the Atlantic bubble requiring a two-week isolation period for visitors from outside Atlantic Canada due to the COVID-19 pandemic, visitation from other places was sparse. There was a drop of around 90 per cent for visitors from the rest of Canada, and 99 to 100 per cent for international visitors.

Overall, total overnight stays were down 54.1 per cent in August, compared to 63.3 per cent in July.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Yarr

Web journalist

Kevin Yarr is the early morning web journalist at CBC P.E.I. Kevin has a specialty in data journalism, and how statistics relate to the changing lives of Islanders. He has a BSc and a BA from Dalhousie University, and studied journalism at Holland College in Charlottetown. You can reach him at [email protected].