Expedia: Quebecers and 'Food and Beverage' workers Canada's most vacation deprived

Before people can even begin to think about travel insurance or any of the other tasks associated with vacation preparation, they have to actually be able to take the vacation time in the first place. According to Expedia, that's been an area of difficulty for many Canadians, most notably Quebecers and 'Food and Beverage' workers.

Data from the travel site's 2017 Vacation Deprivation report revealed that just under two thirds of workers in the Canadian food and beverage industry felt that they were vacation deprived. That sector was closely trailed by agricultural (62 per cent) and retail workers (61 per cent), while the high-stress industries of finance and law actually ranked much lower at 47 per cent.

With 58 per cent of respondents saying they felt vacation deprived, Quebec was Canada's lowest ranking province. British Columbia was its highest at 45 per cent.

Expedia's study was global in its scope and factored in a total of 30 countries. Among those, Canada ranked 10th overall for vacation deprivation. The country that performed highest in this regard was South Korea, with the lowest one being Norway. There were 15,081 respondents in total for the survey and 1,002 came from Canada. All of them were required to either be employed on a full-time, part-time, or self-employed basis in order to qualify.

One of the important distinctions that emerged from the study, which drew from employee responses in North America, South America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, was the differences in vacation norms for these continental areas. Europeans, for example, receive 25-30 days of paid vacation, while Canadians get 6-11 less than that guaranteed. However, only 20 per cent of Canadians surveyed said that they would consider relocating there in order to receive this benefit.

The study also touched on the fact that taking a vacation doesn't necessarily mean disconnecting fully from work. Over 21 per cent of Canadians surveyed said that they check email and voicemail at least once a day while on vacation, and 37 per cent overall said they felt more stressed after doing so. That's the downside of the super accessible and connected world we live in.