2mo ago

Has International Travel to the U.S. Really Collapsed?

www.nytimes.com

Canadians, angered by U.S. tariffs and Trump administration talk of turning their country into a 51st state, really do appear to be boycotting the United States. Ticket sales for travel in summer, a crucial season for the industry, are down 21 percent compared with last year.

The decline in Canadian travelers, who make up roughly a quarter of all foreign visitors, is enough by itself to threaten tourism-oriented businesses in Florida, New York, Maine and other popular destinations.

Sometimes, however, the link between politics and personal travel decisions appears unmistakable. Since President Trump stepped up his hostility toward Canada, border crossings have plummeted.

Unlike air travel, land travel often isn’t planned months in advance, so changes reflect a change in sentiment more quickly. Crossings from Canada dropped sharply after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Canadians to “choose Canadian products and services rather than American ones” on Feb. 1.

Traffic at two of the busiest crossings, near Niagara Falls, fell 42 percent in March compared with 2024. And traffic at a busy crossing point between Vancouver and Seattle fell 48 percent.

33 comments

My stepfather works for a company based in the US. They recently had to cancel a conference since it was in Ohio, and nearly all the staff here refused to attend.
This is going to affect more than just tourism.
- Absolutely!
  Right now there's a non-zero chance of being detained, stripped searched, probed and held in a prison cell without access to safe food and water for an unknown length of time before being deported. Hopefully not to a death in a Columbian hellhole.
  I don't know about you, but even if that is a tiny chance, I'm not risking myself or my family unless it's really important.
  
  To be honest, even if that wasn't the case I still couldn't be convinced to go south of the border. I don't want to contribute to their economy if I can avoid it.
  
  The chance was always non-zero. It's much higher than usual now.
  Remeber these lines for foreign government detention: I wish to speak to the Canaidan embassy & I wish to be released to Canaidan custody. Some nations won't begin the process until you ask.
- Most, if not all of the Ontario school boards have canceled their planned trips to the US. They certainly don't want to take a chance that one of their darker-skinned or foreign exchange students could be whisked off to El Salvador instead of arriving at Disney World.
  
  What trips were they taking to the States? I don't think I ever had a field trip out of country, though it's been a while since I graduated. I think the furthest we ever went was Quebec City.
  
  Same with MB. Trips are on "pause". PD funding for conferences in the states is likely next (it happened last time during Trump 1.0 and the bathroom laws)
Nice one Canadians 💪
The news stories of people getting detained on arrival are becoming more frequent, so you can bet this is going to get a lot worse.
Lets revisit this in 6 months.
- Not to forget the fact that a lot of trips were planned and bought and paid for before Trump had even won.
Keep it up, Canada! If you guys can crash the economy in Florida, and kill the GOP's stranglehold there, that would be fantastic!
- I wish, but Florida having zero income tax will keep rich asshats like Trump buying up second homes enough to keep Florida's economy going
- Another factor is snowbirds selling their Florida properties. They are somewhat flooding the market right now which will drive down prices.
  
  Lots of people are moving--or trying to move--because property insurance has gotten so expensive, and you can't have a mortgage without also having property insurance. But DeSantis and Trump both close their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears when anyone mentions "climate change".
I am only one data point. But I left a well-paying job working for a US startup primarily due to the current climate at the border. I will definitely take a pay cut once I find something Canadian or European, but I think the peace of mind knowing I will never be put in the position of risking my job for refusing to enter the US will balance it out. I hope...
- Bonus also is you are not creating value that is directly fueling the unfolding nightmare there.
I stopped going to the USA when I saw their response to 9-11. The world gave them a lot of slack in the aftermath, and rather than using it for an opportunity to heal and grow, they weaponized it and ran wild.
Glad they look at just non-canadian numbers here. I will, once again, point out the stupidly large amount of money Canadians spend on tourism in the states -
>The U.S. Travel Association (USTA) said in February that a 10 percent reduction in tourism from Canada could put 140,000 jobs at risk and result in $2.1 billion in lost spending. Forbes said that, using that calculation, a decline of 30 percent in Canadian visitors would cost the U.S. economy $6 billion in losses.
- Imagine what that would do if spent in Canada.
  
  We're going to find out this summer.
  I expect the well known tourist destinations here to be packed.
Sure it does. I'm living close to the border like millions of Canadians. I went there one or twice a month for 25+ years, little bit of grocery/shopping for stuff we do not have in Canada, went there 300+ times by car. It stopped end of 2024, have not been there this year and doubt I will go. Acquaintances/neighbours are the same, stopped going there.
Tickets from Europe/asia are expensive and are usually booked months in advance. Might need to wait a bit to see the full effect, if any.
- True. Also could be they lower the price point due to lack of demand, and that pulls in folks who otherwise wouldn't have traveled to compensate somewhat. But they probably also have less money to spend and would do shorter trips...
  I hope Europe and Asia get the message...
Honestly, I'm surprised and disappointed that summer bookings from Europe are only down 2%. We've just had national headlines regarding the abysmal treatment of a couple of our nationals who came to visit Hawaii.
- Compared to Canada a lot more flights from EU to US are for family and work. Comparatively, lot of EU tourism happens within that context, instead of just random destination travel.
- Bookings are down far more than 2%. That number is for arrivals which is the realization of bookings made months ago. The article itself shows bookings down double digits from many European countries.
  The quotes from American airlines say international bookings are ok because those airlines mostly cater to Americans travelling abroad. What do European airlines have to say about traffic to the US? How is the summer looking at Lufthansa?
  This article cherry picks data. I feel like it was written to convince us that what we are hearing is false, not to reflect the facts.
  In Canada, some airlines have already started to cancel entire routes due to lack of demand.
  I agree though, the impact should be greater.
You have to remember also that the number of Canadians who went down there was far higher than the number of any other amount of people, maybe minus Mexicans not sure. So even if it was 1% or whatever it was from the EU that is still a lot more hurt from Canada than it is from the EU. The number of people in that one percent coming from the EU is a lot smaller than the one percent coming from Canada the 78% or whatever it is of Canadians still going down there are either people on business trips, dumb dumbs who think this trade war will be over any time soon, or dumb dumbs who do not value Canada.
Trouble with measuring crossings is it picks up an aggregate of things; Canadians crossing for leisure, for business, Americans crossing for leisure and work, medical tourism (Americans coming for insulin, my uncle driving to Mexico for dental care, etc.), foreigners on a road trip, people driving between Canada and Mexico, etc. Most of these are round trips too; you're going to be measured coming in and then out (so you're part of both statistics).
This sets aside people who already had non-refundable bookings from a year ago; Disney essentially let us cancel our Florida trip once they confirmed our French reservation at Disney there; sure, it's still money going to Disney, but at least a lot of that money is being divested into the French market instead.
My friends who weren't able to cancel made a point of limiting their spending while they were there still. And then there were a couple who just didn't care as well.
Ultimately, the metrics (and their sustained impacts) will be an aggregate of many things, and eventually Canadian fatigue as well.
- While true, quite a few provinces have massively reduced traffic at the border. Ontario's the lowest at 40% reduction, but some provinces are as high as 80%.
  Of course, that doesn't include air since the most uncancellable trips are those done by air, but unlike air traffic, ground traffic is a greater combination of Canadian and American traffic, while I think air is more purely Canadians going to the US, with US business in Canada making up a smaller portion.
  An 80% drop in traffic is even worse than it sounds when you realize that there's a ton of Americans coming over to grab cheap medicine and other small things that won't change much just because of all the Tariff stuff that's going on.

33 comments