Tourism Nova Scotia gathers and reports tourism statistics on behalf of the tourism industry. Updated tourism performance statistics are now available on our website for December 2020 and January 2021.

See Key Tourism Indicators
See Visitor Statistics

Tourism statistics continue to show the severity of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Nova Scotia’s tourism industry. For example, accommodations room nights sold throughout the province were down 48% in December 2020 compared with December 2019. In January 2021, room nights sold were down 42% compared with January 2020. 

Non-resident visitation to Nova Scotia was down 82% in December 2020 compared with December 2019. According to statistics gathered by Tourism Nova Scotia, 21,000 non-resident visitors arrived in Nova Scotia in December, down 82% compared to December 2019. An estimated 16,000 non-resident visitors to Nova Scotia in January 2021, down 83% compared with January 2020.

We are not able to provide full year visitation and tourism revenues estimates for 2020 at this time. Tourism Nova Scotia’s enumeration activities were suspended at various times of the year due to COVID-19 safety concerns. We are developing estimates of visitation for those months when enumeration did not occur. As a result, we will also need to rely on Statistics Canada’s data to develop an estimate of tourism revenues. Given the size and scope of Statistics Canada’s data gathering activities, these reports take longer to produce. We will share full year visitation and tourism revenues estimates for 2020 when they are available.