These detailed reports get up close and personal with the travel details of visitors to Canada from CTC's key international markets.

The specific target is revenue: what visitors spend per trip, per night and what they're spending on.

The quarterly reports break down the figures into accommodation, food, trip purpose and activities.

There's a breakdown of key US states-New York, Massachusetts, California, Illinois and New Jersey-and a comparative study across all Canadian provinces and territories.

Here are some highlights from the 2009 Q1 report:

* Although it was a quieter time at passport control at Canada's points of entry, with overnight trips down 9%, yield held its own. The average spend per night nudged up 2%.

* Visitors from Brazil (25%) and Mexico (12%) led the way to the cash registers; South Korea was the only key market to suffer a decline (-7%).

* Overall, CTC's emerging markets had a 13% bump in average spending per night. However, the average length of stay dropped 11% to 19 nights.

* Hey, big spenders! Travellers from the Americas had the deepest pockets, spending an average 140 bucks a night, up 4%. Visitors from old-world Europe were next at $102 per night, up 3%.

* Key US states made up 39% of all US trips to Canada and 39% of total spending during this period.

* Japan was the biggest riser in Asia, up 7% to $101 per night. This fitted in neatly with a whopping 39% gain by the yen against the loonie compared with Q1 2008.

The commission creates its Travel Characteristics reports mainly using data from Statistics Canada's International Travel Survey.