Cozumel is getting closer

[cvchief]

Why is it that sooo many Canadians can afford to move Internationally is my question?

The freezing @#@#$ cold is motivational. Now if the government changes the weather, maybe more will stay home?

 

[sharky60]

The freezing @#@#$ cold is motivational. Now if the government changes the weather, maybe more will stay home?

I can dig that. That's why I'm in Texas and not Illinois right now. :-D

 

[Mossman]

Why is it that sooo many Canadians can afford to move Internationally is my question?

There used to be a show on TV about dive travel & the host once made a comment that no matter where he went I the Caribbean, there were more Canadian business owners than any others. Is it something about the Canadian social system that allows folks to afford to make these moves?

I thought the idea of retiring to a place like Mexico is that it's cheaper than staying home. More bang for the Social Security and pension buck.

 

[Mike]

Why is it that sooo many Canadians can afford to move Internationally is my question?

There used to be a show on TV about dive travel & the host once made a comment that no matter where he went I the Caribbean, there were more Canadian business owners than any others. Is it something about the Canadian social system that allows folks to afford to make these moves?

I think they are highly motivated...

Summer diving in Canada

 

[sharky60]

I'm not asking about retirees necessarily, that one's easy to figure out.

There are A LOT of full-time business owners and employees on the island and around the Caribbean that are no where near retiring age.

Maybe it's just the free spirit and the willingness to take the chance to step out and do it, but it does seem like the Canadians have the upper hand on the process.

p.s. it was the host of the show "Into the Drink" that first brought it up and raised my curiosity about it. I couldn't remember the name of the show when I first made the post.

 

[Mike]

For the last 10 years I've seen more and more Canadians around me in regard to traveling to foreign countries, anywhere I've went I run into Canadians. We jokingly call them the new 'American' tourists cause they were taking up the slack in the declining number of American's traveling because of the recession.

Economically - Canada is a major commodities based economy and commodities have been booming for the last 10 years and they've enjoyed a huge energy boom for a decade (oil sands) with all the oil they have been selling the US, the loonie had been strong which meant a Canadian's income was going further when they traveled outside their country where their dollars would buy more. This created a boom of Canadians travelling the planet, suddenly there were deals everywhere for them. Mexico was (still is but not like it was) a nice bargain to Canadians because of the loonie's value. (This translates to what Canadians would call the 'low cost of living' in Mexico) Canadian tourism to Mexico tripled in the last 10 years, that's 300% which is huge. So let's face it, Mexico is nice and warm compared to Canada, it's close, easy to get to, and their money was going a lot further in Mexico, so you saw tons of Canadians flocking to Mexico like never before. You go someplace where things are looking so good and what do you do? You keep coming back and you buy stuff and you think about moving there after you retire, or you buy time shares or 2nd homes, or you move and start a business.

Things however are changing now, the US is moving toward energy self-sufficiency (slowly) and commodities have been changing (price of gold has dropped 25%), the US is slowly digging out of the recession and Canada is devaluing their currency, so the tide is going to slowly turn back the other way. With devauling the loonie the Canadian economy will turn back to focus on itself domestically, with their dollar not buying as much outside the country, travel won't be as cheap, the low cost of living in Mexico won't look as cheap... but the flip side is they will focus on manufacturing and job creation, and getting back to welcoming the lucarative American tourist back over the border and enjoy a better export market for the goods they produce. So it's not ones imagination, Canadians for the last 10 years have been stretching their wings and landing all over the world, especially Mexico, but that's probably going to start changing slowly back because their government is focused on currency devaluation and domestic growth now.

 

[Mossman]

For the last 10 years I've seen more and more Canadians around me in regard to traveling to foreign countries, anywhere I've went I run into Canadians. We jokingly call them the new 'American' tourists cause they were taking up the slack in the declining number of American's traveling because of the recession. . . So it's not ones imagination, Canadians for the last 10 years have been stretching their wings and landing all over the world, especially Mexico, but that's probably going to start changing slowly back because their government is focused on currency devaluation and domestic growth now.

When I went to Palau back in 2002, some DMs were joking that when they wanted to talk about odd habits of Japanese divers, that they referred to them as Canadians so as not to cause offence against any Japanese divers who understood English. They didn't have to worry about offending Canadians because no Canadians could afford to go to Palau at the time.

I wonder what they do now?

 

[loudives]

They called them Canadians because the Japanese own most of British Columbia and the western half of Alberta.

 

[bbarada]

We met a couple in Fiji a couple years ago. They were from land-locked Calgary. They'd only been diving a year and they had 100 dives!

 

[Darol]

Because this gets real old, real fast. The beautiful Detroit River.