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After two years of pandemic-related travel restrictions, many people have been hitting the road this summer and stopping in Southeast New Brunswick.

Jillian Somers, CEO of Destination Moncton-Dieppe,  the region’s tourism marketing organization, says July and August are typically robust months for overnight visitors and this year is no exception.

“The numbers are very strong especially for June. Some properties are even witnessing numbers that have outpaced comparable months in 2019.”

However, Somers says overall tourism is still not back to pre-pandemic levels and notes how that will take more time to rebuild.

She says it’s encouraging to see return traffic from traditionally strong markets such as Atlantic Canada and Quebec and she adds visitor numbers from Ontario have been surging this summer.

“We have noticed and this is somewhat anecdotal since we’re looking forward to seeing the data to support it but we’ve seen an increase in visitors from Ontario, so those numbers have been going up.”

Somers says group travel has also improved this summer from Central Canada and also from the United States thanks to relaxed restrictions at the border.

More concrete data on visitor numbers is expected by mid-September.

Destination Moncton-Dieppe was launched earlier this year and is funded by a levy on hotel rooms in Moncton and Dieppe.