Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – Air Canada Vacations is adding great new sun options for their 2021-2022 fall-winter booking season, with new routes and increased capacity to several beach destinations, among which Puerto Vallarta stands out.
Tourist recovery in this popular vacation destination continues to advance with the announcement of new routes from major Canadian cities. Starting in November, Air Canada will offer direct flights to Puerto Vallarta from Vancouver with 5 weekly frequencies, Toronto with 4 flights a week, and 2 operations per week from Calgary as well as from Montreal.
With these new routes Puerto Vallarta will welcome 13 flights a week and potentially more than 2,000 passengers to the Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport which, after the temporary suspension of flights from Canada on January 31, 2021, is ready to welcome back tourists from Canada, Mexico’s second most important international market.
In 2019, 2,296,061 Canadians visited Mexico, by 2020 there were only 948,319 tourists from that country, which represented a drop of 59%. Since May of 2021 only 33,871 visitors from Canada have arrived in our country.
Prior to the pandemic, Puerto Vallarta was the best-connected destination in Latin America through its International Airport, with direct flights from 16 Canadian cities, and the second in the country in reception of Canadian tourists.
In 2019, the Banderas Bay region welcomed 438,015 Canadians. In the first three months of 2020, 198,230 Canucks visited our city and, in 2021, the panorama continues to be low due to the restriction imposed on airlines by the Canadian government, with only 4,714 Canadians arriving before they were lifted in June.
With the announcements of the 5 airlines that previously flew to this destination, confirming their staggered return and the release of restrictions, Puerto Vallarta will seek to recover at least 10% of the number of Canadian visitors that was had in 2019.
Partners and travel advisers are positive about the progress of vaccinations in Canada; and frequent travelers in search of places with warm and cultural climates will be eager to return to one of their favorite destinations, as different platforms have announced, including Expedia, where Puerto Vallarta is among the main searches made by Canadians.
Without a doubt, the return of Canadians to Puerto Vallarta will boost international arrivals which, together with its travel trends in which they stayed for 2 to 3 weeks in the destination, will provide an excellent economic benefit to the entire tourist industry of the port city.