“Elbows Up” shows no signs of slowing down.
New figures released by Statistics Canada today (April 13), show that Canadian trips to the United States continue to fall, and at a faster rate.
Stats Can figures for March, 2026 show that return car trips to Canada from the States fell 4.5% compared to March of last year, while return trips by air dropped 13.7%.
But that’s only half the story. If you compare March of this year against March of 2024, before U.S. President Donald Trump came back into power, you find the figures are much, much greater.
Stats Can says return trips to Canada from the U.S. by car were down 34.9% in March of this year compared to March of 2024, falling from 2.134 million to 1.388 million. Return trips to Canada from the States by air were down 25.4% in March, 2026 when compared with two years ago. Return trips by air fell from 831,919 in March of 2024 to 620,247 in March of this year.
Nearly a quarter (23%) of Canadian travellers have canceled a previously planned trip to the U.S., according to a Longwoods International tracking study.
Flags of Canada and the United States. Unsplash Photos
“In my 37 years in the travel industry, I have never seen anything like what the Canadians have pulled off,” Amir Eylon, President and CEO of Longwoods International, told Forbes.
“The U.S. travel industry has no clear path to winning Canadian travelers back,” Skift.com warned in a story headline posted today.
But Canadians are continuing to travel. Stats Can numbers show that Canadian-resident return trips from overseas countries by air totalled 1.5 million in March of this year, up 4.9% from the same month one year earlier.
In fact, for the third month in a row, more Canadians returned from overseas trips by air in March (1.5 million) than returned from car trips to the U.S. (1.4 million).
The U.S. Travel Association last year said a 10% reduction in Canadian travel to the States could lead to 14,000 lost jobs in the travel and tourism industry in the U.S.
While Canadian trips to the States are way down, Stats Can said U.S. resident trips to Canada increased 4.0% in March, reaching 1.1 million. That’s the second consecutive increase following 12 consecutive months of year-over-year declines.
In March, US residents made 803,500 trips to Canada by automobile (+4.3%) and 296,000 trips by air (+3.1%).
Overseas-resident trips to Canada totalled 294,600 in March, up 9.3% from the same month a year earlier.
All in all, that’s very good news for the Canadian tourism economy.
ON THE OTHER HAND, DOMESTIC U.S. TOURISM ON THE RISE
The Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago. CHOOSE CHICAGO PHOTO
Travelweekly.com reports that a mix of geopolitical tensions, rising fuel costs and an uncertain economic climate may be pushing many American travelers toward closer-to-home destinations.
Data from Internova Travel Group‘s Global Travel Collection (GTC) shows domestic U.S. hotel and air bookings growing steadily through the first quarter of 2026, outpacing international growth by a significant margin.
Within the first few weeks of March, immediately following the eruption of the Iran war on Feb. 28, the group said it saw domestic booking volume jump 17%. For the full month of March, domestic hotel bookings were up 11% year over year, and domestic air was up 8%.
Looking further ahead, domestic hotel bookings for summer are already pacing 23% ahead of where they stood at this point last year, according to GTC president Angie Licea.
Big domestic tourism numbers would certainly help negate the loss of Canadian visitors.
