Canadian Travel to U.S. Climbs 8.8% in August, Fifth Straight Monthly Increase

Return trips from the United States by Canadian residents increased 8.8% in August compared with the same month a year earlier, according to figures Statistics Canada released on Friday. The agency measures return trips, and the August result marked the fifth straight month of year-over-year growth.

Both major modes of transport contributed to the increase. Return trips by automobile climbed 9.9%, while return trips by air rose 3.6%.

The recovery remains far from complete. Statistics Canada reported that automobile return trips last month were 27.4% lower than two years earlier, and air return trips were down 22.7% over the same period.

The agency has said in recent months that the gains largely reflect a "base-year effect," because visits had fallen so far that current increases are bouncing off a depressed baseline.

U.S. travel executives had worried that an escalating trade war with Canada would cool the budding rebound in Canadian visitor numbers during August. The national data did not show that cooling, though the improvement is not uniform, with not every state seeing the same level of recovery.