More Canadians travelled outside the country in December, the second month in a row that the number of foreign trips rose, Statistics Canada said Wednesday

The agency said Canadians made almost 4.3 million trips outside of the national borders in the last month of 2009, a rise of 2.9 per cent over November.

"Trips to both the United States and overseas destinations increased compared with November," Statistics Canada said.

Canada's monthly travel gain represented a slight acceleration compared to November's increase of 2.8 per cent over October.

The two-month gain also meant a positive end to a rather weak year in terms of Canadians going off-shore and foreigners coming here.

For all of 2009, Canadians flew, drove or road the rails to other countries 47.5 million times, a decrease of 8.2 per cent compared to 2008.

Travel to U.S. destinations dropped by a large amount — 10 per cent — while Canadians made 1.3 per cent more trips to other foreign countries in the year.

As well, Canada saw 24 million foreigners visit in 2009, a tumble of almost 10 per cent compared to a year earlier.

For December, however, foreign visits to Canada rose by almost one percentage point versus November.

Better still, in December, the number of visitors from India shot up by nearly 25 per cent while Chinese visitors rose by more than 10 per cent.

Less recessionary travel

In the past, analysts have pointed out that people travel less during economic downturns.

A December Gallup poll indicated that 29 per cent of Americans expected to spend less on airplane flights in 2010 than they did in 2009.

(Gallup conducted its telephone survey of 1,025 adults, aged 18 and older, Dec. 11-13, 2009. The poll is correct ±4 percentage points 19 times out of 20.)