Statscan - Canadians took nearly 3.2 million trips to the United States in December, down 4.0% from November. Of these, just under 1.7 million were same-day car trips, which were down 4.2%.

The number of overnight car trips to the United States fell 6.4%, while overnight trips to the United States by plane increased by 0.8%.

Canadians made 739,000 trips to countries other than the United States in December, up 4.4% from November.

Meanwhile, American residents took 726,000 same-day car trips to Canada in December, a 2.8% decline. This was the ninth monthly decline of 2008 and the lowest level ever.

American residents also took 652,000 overnight car trips to Canada in December, a 3.4% increase from November. Overnight plane trips to Canada from the United States increased 4.4% to 309,000.

Trips to Canada from overseas countries increased 0.8% in December. This was due in large part to a 34.8% rebound in the number of trips from Japan, which followed a 23.8% drop the previous month.

Canadian travel abroad was generally higher in 2008 than it was the year before. Canadians made more than 51.7 million trips abroad last year, a 3.4% increase. Canadian residents made 2.3% more trips to the United States in 2008 while the number of trips to other countries increased by 9.7% compared with 2007.

Americans made 12.0% fewer trips to Canada in 2008. Same-day car travel has been on a downward trend since peaking in 1999. In 2008, the volume of same-day car traffic from the United States (9.1 million) was one-third the level of 1999 and the lowest annual level since records were first kept in 1972.

Travel to Canada from countries other than the United States was up 1.8%. However, travel to Canada from the United States was down in almost every category.