Canada Looking to Draw American Visitors During Fall ‘Off-Season’

A fisherman in a kayak on Bass Lake in central Ontario is surrounded by fall colours, on Oct. 10, 2022. The Canadian Press/Fred Thornhill

Canada hopes to attract visitors to the Great White North in the off-season with a new tourism campaign directed at U.S. travellers.

Destination Canada (DC) has launched a website and video to attract Americans to the country during the autumn season.

“In DC’s newly launched U.S. campaign, Americans are invited to ‘Embrace the Off Season’ and enjoy a trip to Canada this fall,” says one promotional message.

The campaign is designed to encourage U.S. visitors to enjoy Canada from September to November and will focus on digital channels to reach its audience.

“We will showcase how the awe-inspiring fall landscapes and warm and welcoming people in Canada provides Americans with the perfect place to recharge and reconnect with themselves and loved ones after a busy summer,” DC said.

Statistics show pre-pandemic numbers of visitors to Canada from the U.S. were hovering around 14 million each year. That number dipped due to travel restrictions during the pandemic. Even in 2022, American visitor numbers only hit just above 2 million.

It wasn’t until 2023 that the number of U.S. travellers in Canada rebounded for a total of 12.79 million.

As part of the campaign, DC produced a 30-second YouTube video called “Embrace The Off Season.” In the video, a man is seen canoeing on a lake with orange and red-hued trees lining the shore behind him.

“There’s nothing like Canada in the off-season,” he says. The camera moves to the top of the trees as a narrator says, “or as we call it, wander off season.”

A montage of images follows, including people taking photos of the colourful trees, a dark skyline with the Northern Lights in the sky, a man fishing, a bartender shaking a cocktail, food on a picnic table beside a docked ship, a moose eating, and a woman swimming in a lake surrounded by rocks and trees.

The narrator’s voice talks over all the images as they appear, saying “Power off season. Cast offs. Shake it off season. Take a bite off season. Goof off season. Pants off season.”

When images of a cellphone and laptop flash across the screen, the narrator encourages visitors to “turn your notifications off and forget about your responsibilities and expectations and the crushing weight of doubt and uncertainty.”

It ends with the man in the red canoe saying, “So what are you waiting for?”

The video wraps up with the narrator saying, “Embrace the off-season, enjoy fall in Canada.”

At the end of the video, a URL directs viewers to the new DC webpage for the campaign, called CanadaOFFseason.com.