Thank you very much to the committee. I'll do my best not to repeat anything.
Niagara Falls is the number one leisure destination in Canada. We get upwards of 20 million visits per year, and 40,000 people count on tourism to feed their families, pay their mortgages and pay their bills. COVID has been devastating for us. Tourism is $105-billion export industry in this country, and it's affected Niagara Falls as a tourist community to the tune of billions of dollars. I have submitted documentation from Niagara Falls Tourism, the Peace Bridge authority and the Niagara Parks Commission to further illustrate the impact that it's had on us here.
To illustrate to the group the number of people who come here, we get approximately 10 million crossings of our four international bridges. The majority of people who come into this country do so at land border crossings, and oftentimes it's what we refer to as the “rubber tire market”—people impulsively making a decision to come to Niagara Falls.
The typical scenario is a family wakes up, the weather is nice and they make a decision at breakfast to drive to Niagara Falls. They get in the van, they get to the border and they're questioned about the ArriveCAN app, of course, and most of them have no idea what it's about. They're then asked to download it, and oftentimes they do not have roaming and most times do not have access to Wi-Fi at the border. Then our CBSA border guards, instead of worrying about drugs, guns and criminals, become administrators helping them download the app, with questionable outcomes.
I don't need to explain the glitchiness and problems we've experienced with it, but what happens? These people get very frustrated, and as we often say, when you have an experience that's good, you tell someone, and when it's bad, you tell 10 people. That's exactly what's been happening.
There has been a lot of negativity through the U.S. media and the word of mouth that's travelling throughout the United States, and now many people have decided to bypass Canada with their leisure dollars. Our bigger concern going forward is the long-term residual effect of the negativity around our borders. We're going to be looking for the federal and provincial governments to work together to help us fund a campaign to get the word out that we've removed these unnecessary requirements at our borders and once again are open for business. Our ultimate goal, of course, was always to be safe, and early on we supported all the border measures to keep our communities safe. As Dr. Zain Chagla illustrated, there came a point when it wasn't doing that any longer.
We were hopeful that at the beginning of the tourism season, these measures would be lifted so we would have a chance for a recovery. Typically, 50% of the revenue that comes into Niagara Falls comes from U.S. visitation. Americans typically stay longer and spend more, so the long-term effect of this requirement at the border has been devastating. Now, unfortunately, the tourism season is over and 80% of our revenue comes during the summer. Now we're in what's known as the shoulder season, and we'll be going into the holiday season. The tourism operators in Niagara Falls need to make enough revenue during the summer to carry them through the shoulder season and through the winter until the next season is upon us.
We were very hopeful that tourism would return this year. The good news is that domestic tourism returned to prepandemic levels and beyond, so clearly people were ready to return, but unfortunately U.S. visitation was approximately half of prepandemic numbers. We point our fingers squarely at the border measures, including the ArriveCAN app.
We have a lot of businesses right now that are trying to figure out how they're going to pay their bills going into the shoulder season. We're grateful, first of all, that it's been removed, and we're hopeful that the federal government will work with the provinces to help us come up with an advertising campaign. I've suggested a grand reopening of Canada right here in Niagara Falls with the Prime Minister and the premier so we can let the Americans know that once again we are open for business.
That's all I have at this time. Thank you very much.