Canadian travel to U.S. is plummeting: ‘There’s a lot of anger’

Corey Fram works just down the road from Canada. As tourism director for the Thousand Islands International Tourism Council, his job is to promote the area’s sites to people on both sides of the St. Lawrence River. He frequently pops over the border from New York for dinner with his wife.

Lately, he has been getting such a chilly reception from his neighbors to the north that he has switched his strategy. He sees no point in advertising U.S. attractions to Canadian audiences who are bristling at the trade policy and rhetoric coming out of the White House under President Donald Trump.

“Canadians are pushing back against American iconography and American culture,” he said.

Other tour companies, travel agencies, destinations, airlines and hotelscan relate. America’s friends across the border are not so eager to come over and hang out.

“For the nicest people on the planet, who are Canadians, the language is strong,” said Stacy Ritter, head of Visit Lauderdale in South Florida. “There’s a lot of anger out there.”

The U.S. Travel Association estimates that some 20 million Canadians visit annually, escaping frigid winters to generate more than $20 billion in spending, including in literal hot spots like Florida, Arizona and California. The country is the top source of international visitors to the United States.

But the love fest may be on thin ice: Industry experts are reporting a steep decrease in Canadian visitors so far in2025, pointing to a drop in airline and hotel bookings and reduction in the number of available seats on Canadian airlines flyinginto the United States.

Many Canadians say they are angry at Trump for placing hefty tariffs on goods from their country and belittling the sovereignty of the United States’ close ally with talk of making the 3.8 million-square-mile country the 51st state. Trump signed an Inauguration Day executive order to enforce an existing law requiring Canadians visiting the U.S. for longer than 30 days to register with American authorities. Some are nervous about crossing the border amid an immigration crackdown that has gained widespread attention in Canada. The unfavorable exchange rate doesn’t help.

For Cheryl Stiefvater, 66, of Vancouver Island, canceling fall plans to drive a trailer around the United States with her husband amounts to an act of patriotism.

“It actually is kind of a moral choice. That’s how it feels,” said Stiefvater, a retired provincial government worker. “It’s one of the ways that we as Canadian citizens can stand against this.”

‘Complete collapse’

McKenzie McMillan, a Vancouver-based adviser with the Travel Group, said his company would typically be busy this time of year arranging last-minute spring break and summer trips for Canadians to such favorite spots as San Diego, Palm Springs, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Florida.

Instead, he said, “it’s zero.” The steep drop-off started gradually, with some clients in January saying they were thinking they might avoid the U.S. this year. “Since February, it’s been a complete collapse.”

McMillan said about 20 to 30 percent of trips that were already booked got canceled. Since then, he said, the company has seen about a 90 percent drop in new bookings for U.S. vacations compared with the previous year, as clients opt for other destinations.

That is in line with what Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, has been expecting. His travel analytics firm predicted 4 million fewer Canadians visiting the United States this year, a 20 percent decrease that could create a loss of $4.3 billion in the American economy, he said.

PT Tours, a bus tour company based in New Brunswick, called off the eight trips on the books for the United States, including visits to Boston and Washington, D.C., along with an October shopping trip to New Hampshire that has been offered for more than 10 years.

Owner Phyllis LeBlanc said customers started calling to cancel their bookings in late January. She didn’t want to lose her deposit on hotel rooms, so she pulled all the trips.

“They were uncertain what was going to happen in the States; they didn’t feel comfortable,” she saidof her customers. The exchange rate and tariffs added to the declining interest. “With all the news going on, people are afraid.”

Jasmine Mooney, a Canadian actress and entrepreneur with a U.S. work visa, was detained at the Tijuana crossing for weeks, multiple outlets reported. Before she was released, British Columbia Premier David Eby said her situation “certainly reinforces anxiety that … many Canadians have about our relationship with the U.S. right now, and the unpredictability of this administration and its actions.”

Daniel Fequet, co-founder and general manager of Montreal-based Approach Tours, said the Canadian retirees who book with his company are paying for a lack of complication when they travel.

Fequet said a quarter of his customers over the past couple of months have told sales workers that they are booking with his company specifically because they don’t want a trip to the United States, taking their weakening Canadian dollars to destinations such as South Africa instead.

“There is uncertainty, and with that comes a lack of security. I think those are two main drivers of the decrease in the U.S.,” he said.

Fewer Canadians flying, visiting Florida

February automobile trips from Canada to the U.S. dropped 17.5 percent year over year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Canada’s government statistics office reported the drop as 23 percent year over year. Canada also reported that its residents took 13.1 percent fewer flights to the U.S. and back over the same stretch.

Flight Centre Travel Group Canada, a travel agency, saw a 40 percent decrease in leisure bookings to the United States in February compared with a year earlier. The company’s leisure brand also saw a 20 percent cancellation rate on U.S. trips; many of those were shifted to places like Mexico or the Caribbean.

“As we move into April, we’re tracking a clear shift in travel preferences,” spokeswoman Amra Durakovic said in a statement. “Canadians still want to see the world - they’re simply being more intentional about where they go and how they spend, particularly in light of currency exchange and evolving global dynamics.”

Group travel company Intrepid Travel said the proportion of Canadian bookings to the U.S. - meaning the percentage of all Canadian bookings for the U.S. compared with other destinations - was down 92 percent in March compared with a year earlier, reflecting what the company called a “souring national mood” toward the United States.

Air Canada reported at its annual meeting this week that bookings for flights across the border over the next six months were down 10 percent year over year, according to Bloomberg.

Analyzing certain online travel agency bookings made from major Canadian airports to key U.S. cities in the first quarter for travel in April through June, the aviation analytics firm Cirium found them down by a little more than 20 percent.

An analysis from aviation data firm Visual Approach shows that many airlines have cut their capacity to airports in some top tourism spots. Courtney Miller, the firm’s founder, said the American airport that saw the biggest drop in April arrivals from Canada is Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International in Florida, with a 20 percent decrease.

That has Ritter, head of Fort Lauderdale’s tourism board, concerned. She said Broward County welcomes about 1.1 million Canadians every year.

But, she said, now many of them have been emailing and saying things must change for them to visit again. She said even a 20 percent drop in Canadians to the area could “have devastating consequences” when combined with a drop in visitors from Europe who may be concerned about strict entry policies.

“I’m not sure the administration thought this through, but this is an unintended consequence that may or may not have an impact,” Ritter said.

Visit Orlando said in a statement that there has been a “notable slowing of pace” in recent weeks for advance hotel bookings by Canadians through September, with the most extreme numbers showing a 35 percent dip in May. The area, home to Disney World,, welcomed more than 1.2 million Canadians in 2023, more than any other nationality.

Florida hosted nearly 3.3 million Canadian visitors in 2024, according to data published by the state’s tourism arm, accounting for 27 percent of the year’s international visitors to the state.

The state’s residents pay no income tax largely because tourism dollars offset the lack of revenue. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Tuesday during a news conference that he wasn’t worried about early reports of Canadians not coming to Florida because he and his family were at Legoland in Central Florida a couple weeks ago, and “80 percent” of the people stopping him for pictures were Canadians.

“So,” he said, “the Canadians are coming. We’re gonna continue to be a tourist hot spot.”

But it’s not just Florida at risk.

A dip of just 10 to 15 percent in Canadian visitors could lead to millions of dollars lost in direct spending around the border that separates Ontario from Upstate New York, said Fram, tourism director for the Thousand Islands International Tourism Council.

Jim Byers, a Canada-based travel writer who has dual citizenship with the U.S., said editors in Canada have been saying they don’t want coverage of U.S. destinations. Some writers are avoiding press trips to the States.

A senior writer for the travel trade publication OpenJaw, Byers said he expects to write more stories this summer about traveling within Canada. The turn away from the United States, he said, goes along with the “Buy Canadian” movement within the country and the slogan “Elbows up,” referencing a hockey move.

“It’s a very, very strong, guttural reaction to someone we thought was our friend,” Byers said.

Stiefvater acknowledged that it was “kind of heartbreaking” to take a U.S. trip off the calendar. She and her husband alternate each year between Europe and the United States, where she has family members. They have visited national parks, Oregon’s wine country, Southern California, Nevada, Arizona and more. She isn’t sure yet where they’ll go instead.

“All I know is that I want to go someplace warm,” she said.

- - -

Lori Rozsa contributed to this report.