Canada seeks to attract US frequent flyers with perks on Air Canada

Canada is trying to use the lure of travel perks to convince America's frequent-flying elite to fly north on Air Canada, as the country steps up efforts to revive crucial traffic from the United States, a Canadian official said. COVID-19 has battered travel from Canada's largest tourism market. During the first half of 2021, Canada had only about 178,000 overnight arrivals from the United States, compared with 6.8m during the same period in 2019, according to government data. To help reverse that decline, government tourism body Destination Canada on Monday rolled out its first campaign targeting US frequent flyers, in partnership with the country's largest carrier. It is part of broader, C$14m efforts by the tourism commission to boost traffic after Canada recently opened its borders to vaccinated travellers. It is not clear how much the specific frequent flyer campaign will cost. "This is super-focused in terms of our ability to reach frequent flyers," Gloria Loree, Destination Canada's chief marketing officer told Reuters, ahead of the launch. Under the plan, up to 20,000 US frequent flyers with carriers like American Airlines could get matching status when flying Air Canada north of the border.<br/>