Pivotal moment for Canadians to Great Britain on horizon

Canadian visitor arrivals to Great Britain are approaching a pivotal moment and are forecast to reach or exceed the one-million mark in 2025.

That’s the outlook of the tourism organization VisitBritain and further confirmed by VisitBritain CEO Patricia Yates, who recently led the Destination Britain Americas travel trade mission in the Mayan Riviera of Mexico. During an interview with Travel Press Today (TPT), she also said that Canadian visitor revenues would approach £1 billion in 2026.

VisitBritain welcomed 47 top international tourism product buyers from the U.S., Canada and Brazil to the sprawling Paradisus La Perla Resort near Playa del Carmen, to meet with 53 British tourism suppliers over three days last week. Over two of those days, they conducted about 1,200 meetings, each lasting 14 minutes. They also met a small group of select travel trade media, as did Yates, who described Canada’s impending pivotal moment.

“What we’ve seen is a reluctance by Canadians to travel south to the United States,” said Yates. “So, it’s a real opportunity for Britain to come in and fill that gap. We can see that the airlines are putting on additional trans-Atlantic routes, and lift is always a good driver of visits. And there are already strong links between Britain and Canada.”

“So, it seems that this is the moment where we can really capitalize to drive more growth from Canada,” said the CEO.

In 2024, Canadian visitor numbers to Great Britain reached 944,000, generating £891 million in tourism revenues for the nations of England, Scotland and Wales – both figures down slightly from record-setting stats in 2023. But Great Britain is on pace to attract 1 million visitors, spending £900 million, in 2025. And VisitBritain projects Canadian arrivals totaling 1.2 million visits (£1.3 billion spent) by 2030.

Yates also noted that Canadians are an ideal fit for expanding the reach of tourism commerce outside of London to other urban centres and rural attractions, in keeping with VisitBritain policies going forward. “Canadians, who tend to stay longer, spend more and explore anywhere, are a really good market for us,” said Yates. Canadians are the ones who are more adventurous and also often have more friends and family in Britain.”

In describing the decision to hold the Destination Britain Americas mission in Mexico, Yates said that “we want to go to places that are attractive to buyers and affordable to suppliers, and Mexico fit the bill, while also providing a resort experience.”

But Yates also noted that there was a reluctance by the Canadian buyers to take part in the event if it were held in the United States as in past years, and were in fact unlikely to attend the DBA mission if it took place in the U.S. Hence the choice of a location in Mexico.

The DBA event ended with a gala that featured the latest promotional video extolling feature film locations in Great Britain, using entertaining segments from several recent movies tied together in inventive ways. This is the latest effort to leverage made-in-Britain films to drive more arrivals by tourists who want to see the locations of their favourite movies and TV shows.

The “Starring GREAT Britain” campaign was launched earlier this year and uses the attraction of film and TV locations seen on-screen to inspire more visits to Britain. The latest research by VisitBritain indicates that amongst those considering a trip to the UK, nine out of 10 surveyed would be keen to visit a film or TV location. Amongst Canadians, about 87% of those surveyed said they would have the same motivations.