Canadians and Americans alike souring on cross-border travel, new data shows, as day trips plummet

Hamilton Spectator

24-04-2025

U.S. President
Donald Trump's
trade war
with Canada hit North America's tourism industry quickly — and hard, according to
new data from Statistics Canada
.
More than 450,000 fewer Canadians returned from trips to the U.S. in February compared to January, according to travel data released Wednesday
.
Much of the decline was driven by a nearly 300,000 drop in day trips by Canadians south of the border.
While this marked the second consecutive month of fewer return trips from the States, February saw an even more dramatic drop than January when comparing Statistic Canada's year-over-year data for each month. There were nearly 18 per cent fewer Canadians heading home from the U.S. in February 2025 compared with February 2024. When comparing January 2024 and January 2025, there was only a 2.3 per cent drop.
Wednesday's data is yet another sign that the U.S. tourism industry has become collateral damage for Trump's tariff threats, 51st-state jeers and hardline border policies as Canadians use their travel plans to push against what they see as an antagonistic government.
In February, Flight Centre Canada saw a 40 per cent decrease in bookings to the U.S. compared with the year before, said Chris Lynes, the agency's managing director. This trend continued, he said, with bookings to the States again down 40 per cent in March.
'While some Canadians are travelling less to the U.S., Flight Centre bookings show a steady shift toward international destinations where the dollar stretches further, such as Mexico, Japan and Australia,' Lynes added.
Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded
a plummet of nearly one million travellers crossing the land border in March
compared with the same month a year prior — one month after seeing a decline of 500,000 trips.
Across social media, Canadians have been sharing that they're cancelling trips to the U.S. out of
frustration with Trump's threats of tariffs and annexation
to
fears of the U.S. government's stringent border policies
. The February data notably predates many of the
reports of
foreigners
being detained at the U.S. border, as well as travel advisories issued by
the Canadian government
and
other
groups
warning of visiting the States.
It's not just Canadians souring on cross-border travel; Wednesday's data shows a more than five per cent drop in Americans heading north in February compared with the same month a year prior.
In Windsor, where Canadians and Americans cross the border regularly for work, sports games and just to shop, there was a drop of around 14 per cent in border traffic in February, said Gordon Orr, the CEO of Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island.
Any loss of American visitors could be significant for the region's $856-million tourism industry. According to Orr, about a third of the region's 5.6 million visitors in 2023 hailed from the States.
Still, Orr said he is optimistic that there would be a good tourism season once it starts in earnest in May.
Over in Niagara Falls, the local tourism industry is also feeling hopeful that Americans, who make up about 40 per cent of the region's 14 million visitors each year, will continue to visit this coming summer.
'We've built a friendship over many, many decades of cross-border travel,' said Janice Thomson, president and CEO of Niagara Falls tourism. 'So we don't see that going way quickly at all.'
Even if there are fewer Americans, Orr said he expects more Canadian visitors to Windsor in the future as a result of the growing 'Buy Canadian' movement that's seeing droves of people interested in supporting local, including domestic travel.
'We were exhibiting at the Toronto Outdoor Adventure Show in February,' he said, 'and a lot of attendees came up to our booth and said, 'We weren't necessarily considering Windsor-Essex as a destination. But we're not going to the U.S. this year, and so we want to travel to other parts of Ontario.' '
'So that's all very, very positive.'