Canadians continue to avoid U.S. travel in huge numbers, according to new data from Statistics Canada.
StatsCan says Canadian return trips from the United States in April plummeted 35.2% compared to the same month in 2024. The number of Canadians returning from the U.S. in April by air was down 19.9%.
The number of Canadians returning from the U.S. by car in March was down 31.9%, while air traffic was down 13.5%, which means the boycott gained significant strength last month in both categories.
Canadian airlines have cut back significantly on flights to and from the U.S.
The recent calming of rhetoric between the U.S. and Canada, as evidenced by a mostly friendly meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney earlier this month, may serve to calm things down a bit. But we won’t know the May travel numbers until around June 11 or 12.
The U.S. Travel Association earlier this year warned that a 10% drop in Canadian visits would mean a loss of around $2.1 billion to the US economy, and the loss of 14,o00 jobs.
A report today (May 13) from the World Travel & Tourism Council said overall visitor spending in the U.S. could call $12.5 billion this year versus 2024, with overall totals expected to fall from $181 billion last year to less than $169 billion in 2025.
If you use the U.S. Travel Association’s figures on Canadian visits as a base, that kind of drop could mean a loss of 84,000 jobs.
My friends at Open Jaw have a good story today, pointing out that return trips to Canada from the U.S. were down 19.9% in April, but return air trips from overseas destinations were up 9.9%.
In April, 1.3 million Canadian passengers returned on overseas flights, while just 582,700 returned from the U.S., which means overseas flight loads were more than double loads from the U.S.
A story posted at Skift.com today suggests Europeans may be getting over their recent distaste for visiting the States. The story quotes the U.S. International Trade Association as saying that, after a drop in March, visits to the U.S. from 20 major foreign countries increased 0.4% in April. Visits from Western Europe, a key source of incoming tourism for the U.S., were up a solid 12.1%.
A rise in overseas visits likely would make up for the drop in Canadian numbers. But the World Travel and Tourism Council still says the U.S. travel trends are disturbing.
In an interview with The New York Times, WTTC President and CEO Julia Simpson said residents of Canada and Mexico have both lost a lot of their interest in visiting the States.
“The near neighbours, Canada and Mexico, are not travelling,” she said. “There are also concerns over visas — whether they’ve got the right visa or might accidentally get arrested, which has made people quite fearful.
“Of 184 countries, the U.S. is the only one that’s seeing an absolute decline in international visitor spending,” Simpson said.
“While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the US government is putting up the ‘closed’ sign,” she added. “I’m quite sure President Trump, with his background in hospitality, understands that holiday makers just want to come and enjoy the beautiful country and the people and the history and then go home again. They don’t want to live there.”
CANADIAN TOURISM: A MIXED BAG OF STATS
Travel surveys have repeatedly shown Canadians want to explore more of their own country this summer. That’s good news for the Canadian tourism and travel industry, but today’s StatsCan report also shows Americans aren’t visiting Canada as often as they normally do. The report finds that the number of US-resident trips to Canada by automobile in April was down 10.7% from the same month in 2024. It’s also the third consecutive month of year-over-year declines.
Today’s StatsCan report says non-resident arrivals to Canada by air last month were down 1.2% versus last year. Arrivals by overseas residents rose 2.8%, but arrivals by U.S. residents were down 5.5% from April of last year.
