Introducing our new Overnight Visitation Analysis Tool
Measuring visitation to an entire region is often difficult, and further complicated by how to differentiate between local visits (those who live within 40KM) and tourists (those who live 40KM+)?
Luckily, through our Visitor Research Program, we are able to measure, analyze and understand visitation to pockets of our region via collection of visitor postal codes from stakeholders or geofencing areas of interest, along with hotel stats from over 60% of hotel properties within our region gives us a good understanding of our local visitor economy. Until now, there have still been some gaps to fill to better understand overall municipal visitation – especially from overnight visitors, as they are the ones who spend more money in our region (i.e., they most likely require accommodation, food and/or beverages, and probably spend $X on attractions and retail).
Our newest addition to the Visitor Research Program, Overnight Visitor Analysis, fills this gap! This research tool measures and analyzes overnight visitors from those who travel 40KM+ and spend the night in our region, whether at a hotel, short term rental (e.g., Airbnb), with friends or family, a cottage, campground, etc.. By understanding overnight visitation, we can better target high-value visitors, know which cities and segments to market to and when, and rank visitation by different measurements.
As mentioned in our first Data Crunch: Intro to Tourism Data webinar, research starts with asking the right question. So, in terms of overnight visitation to a municipality / region, our questions can be: How many…
- overnight visits?
- overnight trips?
- unique visitors who travelled 40KM+ to the region & spent the night?
- nights per trip?
- nights per visitor?
- people per different city/town?
Or all of the above. All of these questions look at overnight visitation, but can provide very different results. In terms of visitor origin, City X may rank highest for the most number of total nights in a municipality / region whereas City Y might rank highest for the most overnight trips, and City Z might rank highest for the most number of nights per trip. While these metrics all sound quite similar, they each tell a different story with respect to overnight visitation.
Let’s take a closer look at the insights available with Overnight Visitor Analysis focussing on question (A) above: How many overnights spent in the region*? In the example below, we are analyzing overnight visitation into York, Durham and Headwaters (YDH) between 2022 and 2024, both nationally and from the U.S..
*Please note: Though we are looking at regional data, our new tool allows us to apply the same analysis for a municipality too.
| Year | CAN % | CAN YoY% | US % | US YoY% | Total # of Nights | YoY% |
| 2022 | 87.92% | – | 12.08% | – | 19,625,973 | – |
| 2023 | 85.09% | -1.89% | 14.91% | 25.08% | 19,894,510 | 1.37% |
| 2024 | 82.33% | -5.87% | 17.67% | 15.33% | 19,355,508 | -2.71% |
The above chart and table tell us that annually there were over 19 million nights spent in our region from tourists, averaging 85% from domestic travel and 15% from Americans; though a slight -3.88% average Year-over-Year decrease from Canadians, there has been an average 20% YoY increase in US travel.
The decrease in Canadian overnight visitation might be of concern, however, keep in mind that the Government of Canada lifted travel restrictions on Oct 1st, 2022, allowing Canadians to catch up on their US/International travel demand. From the American perspective, on the other hand, the removal of all COVID-19 entry restrictions coupled with the strong $USD made visitation to Canada more appealing, leading to increased overnight travel into our region.
What about 2025 Year-to-Date (January – July)?
| YTD (JAN-JULY) Year | CAN % | CAN YoY% | US % | US YoY% | YTD # of Nights | YTD YoY% |
| 2022 | 88.94% | – | 11.06% | – | 11,213,035 | – |
| 2023 | 84.98% | -5.84% | 15.02% | 33.90% | 11,051,031 | -1.44% |
| 2024 | 82.96% | -0.58% | 17.04% | 15.52% | 11,253,935 | 1.84% |
| 2025 | 85.58% | 5.00% | 14.42% | -13.86% | 11,454,734 | 1.78% |
When we look at the 2025 Year-to-Date data we see domestic travel has returned to a potential ‘normal’ (only -1.71% lower than 2022 YTD (9,802,593 vs 9,973,081); remember this is when we still have travel restrictions), indicating a good news story for the region. Regarding US travel being lower in 2025 YTD, despite the strong $USD, the political climate is playing a role in overnight travel.
Now that we know the overall stats for overnight visitation into our region, where are these 19+ million visitors coming from?
Below is a Top-10 Ranking by City (Domestic) and State (US) that spent the most number of nights in our region by year.
Since these markets spend the greatest number of nights in our region, they are considered high-value visitors, and are the key markets that we target, as should you!
Any surprises for you?
Seeing Toronto and Mississauga ranked 1st and 2nd is no surprise as both large cities are our neighbours; however, seeing New York and Texas in the Top-10 was a surprise for me. Of course, marketing to the US, especially right now, might not be possible for you, but this data provides us with insights on where our overnight visitors are coming from and validates where you should target your marketing.
And lastly, answering the question, when are they visiting our region?
Below is a distribution of that visitation by month, which also gives us a look into the regional’s seasonality.
Hopefully, this intro to our new Overnight Visitor Analysis tool has peeked your interest. Stay tuned for more updates as we will be launching this tool for our municipalities soon. In addition to supporting your understanding of who is coming, from where and for how long, this overnight data can prove to be a useful tool for investment attraction opportunities. If you have been wanting to get a hotel or other paid accommodation investments, knowing that there are tens of thousands of visitors spending the night on their friends couches per year, could spark interest from developers.
As always, if you do have any questions about these reports, other research, or data in general, feel free to contact Tom.
