Historical Trends in Niagara’s Tourism Sector, 2001 to 2022

The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines tourism as “a social, cultural and economic phenomenon which entails the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business/professional purposes. These people are called visitors (which may be either tourists or excursionists; residents or non-residents) and tourism has to do with their activities, some of which involve tourism expenditure.” Tourism in this regard, the agency notes, is not just limited to holiday activity, but more broadly, people travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours for business and other purposes. It also involves both domestic (within the traveller’s own country) and international. The activities that constitute tourism are primarily a composite of cultural industries with facilities, services, and products geared towards visitors.

In this section, we examine changes in Niagara’s tourism sector, comparing job trends in the region with those of the province of Ontario and Canada as a whole. The analysis covers both North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and National Occupation Classification (NOC) data, examining changes in jobs by industry (number of jobs overall) and occupation (types of jobs). The discussion begins with NAICS data on industry trends and then proceeds to the NOC data on changes in occupation.

Charles Conteh

Brock University

September 2023