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An increase in the number of same-day car trips at the end of last year helped push Canadian outbound travel in December to its highest level since March 1994, Statistics Canada has found.

According to the government agency, Canadians made 5.1 million trips outside of the country in December, a 5.4 per cent increase on December 2010.

Accounting for nearly half of all travel were same-day car trips, which totaled 2.5 million, a year-on-year 7.8 per cent increase.

Association of Canadian Travel Agencies chair Ellen Tucker told the Toronto Star that rising demand for short bus tours had become a way for Canadian tourists to combine sightseeing with trips to American malls, which as the result of a weak US economy had become a lure for Canadian shoppers.

¡°The sales there have been amazing,¡± she said. ?

¡°People know that¡¯s happening; how can they resist?¡±

The same can¡¯t be said of travel to Europe however, which is in the midst of its own debt crisis.

Trips by Canadians to countries other than the United States totaled 761,000 in December, slightly up from the year prior, but 2.3 per cent down from November.

Meanwhile, inbound travel to Canada has remained flat, with just over two million non-residents visiting the nation in December, up 0.6 per cent.??

Of particular note were the number of trips to Canada by non-US residents, which rose to their highest level since September 2008, to 389,000.

US tourists accounted for 1.65 million of all visits to the country during the month.