P.E.I. fighting for 5th record tourism year

Total overnight stays were down on P.E.I. in July, but the provincial government has not given up on recording a fifth consecutive record year for tourism.

Overnight stays were down 4.2 per cent in July and 2.1 per cent for the year-to-date. Tourism Minister Chris Palmer said marketing efforts were bumped up at the first sign of decline.

"We are in regular contact with industry and when we started to see signs that July was a bit behind last year, we took steps to shore-up the rest of the season with targeted marketing aimed at Islanders and short-haul travelers in the Maritime provinces," Palmer said.

Palmer said he expects the new marketing will lead to a rebound in August and September.

While there is a fair-sized drop in overnight stays, entries to the province are holding relatively steady, suggesting people are still coming but they are not staying as long as they did last year.

For the year-to-date, ferry traffic is up while Confederation Bridge and air traffic are largely the same.

• Bridge: +0.1%.
• Air: -0.4%.
• Ferry: +3.1%.
• Cruise ships: +21.1%.
• Motorcoach: -13.8%.

Provincial heritage sites, which have had a strong showing in the recent record years, were down 2.6 per cent for the year-to-date.

People were, however, still loving the beach, with visits to P.E.I. National Park up 24.9 per cent.

In terms of place of origin of visitors, almost all markets were down, with New Brunswick being an exception, up 2.5 per cent. Ontario saw the biggest drop in Canadian markets, down 7.1 per cent.

U.S. visitors were down 6.0 per cent, with other international markets falling 2.5 per cent.

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