Industry Update (New Brunswick)

New Brunswick Visitation:

In 2008, New Brunswick welcomed an estimated 2.5 million visits of one or more nights from New Brunswick residents on out-of-town trips, from other parts of Canada, from the United States, and from overseas.

New Brunswick Accommodations:

New Brunswick accommodations sold over 1.7 million room nights in 2009, representing a 2% decrease as compared to 2008 (see Table 6). This decrease was split nearly evenly between residents and non-residents.

The annual occupancy rate in New Brunswick averaged 51% in 2009, 3 percentage points lower than that reported in 2008. Room sales remained consistent with 2007 levels, and occupancy rates reflect the addition of 225,516 available room nights in provincial accommodations between 2007 and 2009.

The average daily room rate in New Brunswick, as observed in the month of August, decreased by 3% to $118.79 in 2009. New Brunswick accommodation room sales to residents decreased by 21,440 room nights in 2009 as compared to 2008, and the majority of this decrease in resident room sales was observed in the Fundy Coastal and Saint John River Valley tourism regions.

Attraction Attendance:

Combined attendance at leading Provincially or Federally supported attractions totaled 835,647 for the peak tourism season of May to October, which represented a 13% increase in 2009 as compared to 2008.

Of the 26 attractions included in New Brunswick's monthly tourism indicators, only museums and galleries reported fewer visits in 2009 than in 2008.

Regionally, attractions along the Saint John River Valley reported declines in visitation in 2009 as compared to 2008, while attractions in the Acadian Peninsula and in Northern New Brunswick reported over 30,000 more visits during the year of the Congrès mondial acadien 2009 than in the previous year