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Has International Travel to the U.S. Really Collapsed? (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 3 months ago by CobraChicken3000@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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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.

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[-] DarkWinterNights@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

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.

[-] Dearche@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

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.