The U.S. Lost Canadian Travel Dollars to Home and Mexico

Canadian residents cut travel spending in the United States by $3.3 billion in 2025, and Statistics Canada found most of those trips moved to Canada and overseas. U.S. tourism boards are still buying billboards that say they love Canada. The money already left.

Florida, Arizona, California and Las Vegas now head into snowbird season on the losing side of that split, while Mexican beaches and Canadian hotels keep the spend.

The $3.3 Billion Did Not Stay Home

Laura Presley and Carter McCormack, writing for Statistics Canada’s July 22, 2026 review, tracked an abrupt turn after the U.S. administration changed in early 2025. Return border crossings from the United States fell 25.4% from 2024, when they totalled 39 million and made up three-quarters of all Canadian returns from abroad. By the end of 2025 they were two-thirds. The slide bottomed in July, almost a third below the same month a year earlier, then stuck. Excluding the pandemic, the 11-month run of year-over-year drops was the deepest on record since digital frontier counts began in 1972. The only other decline of more than 30% came in September 2001.

The National Travel Survey counted 7.1 million fewer visits to the United States, a 23.5% drop, and 23.1 million visits in total. Same-day errands and long weekends vanished with the week-long holidays. Travel spending fell $3.3 billion to $18.8 billion. Leisure accounted for most of the hole, down $2.2 billion to $12.1 billion. Early 2026 crossings stayed near late-2025 levels, which Presley and McCormack called a persistent shift in where Canadians want to go.

They did not stop going places. Domestic visits rose 1.5%, or 5.0 million, and still made up more than 90% of all Canadian-resident visits at home and abroad. Overseas visits rose 1.3 million, or 10.2%. Statistics Canada said those two streams almost entirely offset the stateside loss.

WHERE THE 2025 TRIPS WENT

Domestic travel spending reached $81.3 billion, up 8.7%, on the back of an 8.1% rise in leisure outlays. Destination Canada’s outlook, prepared with Tourism Economics, puts reshored travel spending of $1.5 billion in 2025 and $4.4 billion across 2025 through 2027. The Crown corporation’s summer tally for May through August 2025 was $59 billion, up 6%, including $44.4 billion from Canadian travellers and $14.6 billion from international visitors. Domestic summer spending was up 6.9%, and 89% of Canadian regions posted gains. For 2026 it projects $140.9 billion in visitor spending, up 6%.

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Europe and Asia Took the Leisure Trips

Holiday travel, not family duty, drove the swap. Statistics Canada said 58.4% of Canadian trips abroad in 2025 were for holiday, leisure and recreation. Leisure visits to the United States fell 21.5%, or 3.2 million. Leisure visits overseas rose 12.2%, or 1.1 million. Visits to see friends and relatives in the United States fell 9.0%, or 536,000, a slower drop because those trips are harder to replace with a new country.

Europe took 579,000 more visits, up 13.6%. Asia took 387,000 more, up 16.7%. Overseas leisure spending rose $3.6 billion to $22.8 billion, which is more than Canadians spent on every kind of visit to the United States combined. Josh Loewen, a 45-year-old marketing executive in Vancouver, used to take his wife and two children to San Diego, Portland and Seattle. In 2026 the family went to Mexico.

The first quarter of 2026 kept the same shape. Canadian residents took 5.5 million trips that included a U.S. visit, down 10.6%, and spent $5.0 billion, down 13.6%. They took 4.6 million overseas trips, up 6.2%, and spent $10.1 billion, up 16.7%. At home they logged 69.1 million domestic trips, up 2.3%, and spent $14.5 billion, up 5.1%. U.S. residents still crossed north: 3.6 million trips to Canada, up 3.4%, and $3.0 billion in spending, up 16.5%. The boycott is one-way.

A Bank of Canada note in February 2026 counted close to 10 million fewer trips to the United States in 2025, including 8.4 million fewer by land, down 30%, and 1.2 million fewer by air, down 12%. Between the first and third quarters, Canadians took 4% more domestic trips and spent about 10% more at home, with a second-quarter burst of 11% more trips and 15% more spending as Buy Canadian talk spread. In the bank’s consumer survey, more than one-third of respondents planned to spend more on domestic travel, and almost half planned to cut U.S. trips.

Air travel to the United States had already been softening since September 2023, as a weaker Canadian dollar and higher fares and hotel rates made the trip dearer. The 2025 break was faster than a currency squeeze. People with a choice used it.

A Thin Gap Separates Canada and Mexico in Vegas

Las Vegas used to treat Canada as its largest foreign market by a wide margin. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority counted 1,196,300 Canadian visitors in 2025, down from 1,448,700 in 2024, a 17.4% drop and 252,400 fewer people. Mexican visitation rose 1% to 1,187,400 from 1,175,600. The gap between the two was 8,900 visitors. Each market was about 25% of foreign arrivals. Overall international visitation fell 4.8% to about 4.73 million, and total city visitation fell 7.5% to about 38.5 million.

LAS VEGAS FOREIGN ARRIVALS, 2025

Downtown hotels began taking the Canadian dollar at par with the U.S. dollar. Steve Hill, president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, went to Vancouver to meet travel advisers, tour operators and airline staff. “We’re here to make sure you know that we care about Canada,” Hill said. Some Strip properties are trying to buy back a market that has already priced in the politics, and a weak loonie on top of that. For U.S. national accounts the missing spend is small. For a casino town that leaned on one northern country, it is a hole you can count in rooms.

Why Florida’s Snowbird Season Is the Next Test

Florida, Arizona and California now head into the season that pays their winter bills. Visit Florida recorded a 7% drop in Canadian visitors in 2025, and the first quarter of 2026 still showed fewer Canadian trips into the United States than a year earlier. Hotel welcome notes will not decide that. The fight between Ottawa and Washington will.

Visit California, citing Tourism Economics, put the 2025 Canadian decline in the Golden State at 20%. Greater Fort Lauderdale has sold itself for decades as a French-speaking winter colony along U.S. Highway 1. Jennifer Adams, tourism director for Destin-Fort Walton Beach in the Florida Panhandle, said she never panicked when the first boycott headlines landed. “I felt our message was strong,” she said, and that the job is to let Canadian families know they are welcome and will get a good stay.

Last winter’s RV books were already thin. Campspot, a park reservation service, reported Canadian bookings down 36.5% in Florida, 24.1% in Texas, 71.3% in Georgia and 60.2% in Alabama. Those parks did not sit empty. Domestic guests and longer stays from other markets filled some of the pads. The Canadian week that used to be automatic did not.

WHERE THE WINTER LOSS SHOWS UP

• Florida: Visit Florida counted a 7% decline in Canadian visitors in 2025, the mildest official drop among the big sun states and still a hole in peak season.
• California: Visit California estimated a 20% fall in Canadian visitation, using Tourism Economics figures.
• Las Vegas: Canadian arrivals fell 17.4%, or 252,400 people, while Mexican arrivals rose 1%.
• Sunbelt RV parks: Campspot’s Canadian reservations for winter 2025-26 were down 36.5% in Florida and even more in Georgia and Alabama.

Deborah Friedland, a hospitality consultant at Eisner Advisory Group, said she would be surprised to be talking a year from now about a huge uptick in Canadian winter travel. Q1 2026 is the first full snowbird window after the 2025 shock, and it still showed a 10.6% drop in Canadian trips to the United States. The next window opens in November.

Welcome Ads Cannot Cover a Trade War

State offices kept spending anyway. New York launched a “NY Loves Canada” push this summer with discounts at hotels, restaurants and attractions. Graceland joined the chase. Brand USA, the industry’s national marketing group, kept trade contacts on and planned a consumer message aimed at younger travellers whose online habits still hint they might come.

The White House kept giving them new copy to fight. President Donald Trump returned to office talking about making Canada the 51st state, then levied import taxes of up to 50% on Canadian goods. After trade talks collapsed in August 2026, he ordered the U.S. government to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America. Prime Minister Mark Carney called insults from Trump’s Cabinet childish. A day after the 2026 World Cup ended, Trump announced tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods, to start in 30 days, over U.S. complaints about Canadian barriers to automobiles, alcohol and dairy.

FROM THE FIRST SHOCK TO OCTOBER’S PITCH

1. Early 2025: Trump returns to office, annexation talk and tariffs land, and Canadian crossings from the United States begin an 11-month slide.
2. July 2025: Return crossings bottom at nearly one-third below July 2024, then level off about a quarter down.
3. May to August 2025: Destination Canada records $59 billion in summer tourism revenue, with $44.4 billion from Canadians travelling at home.
4. April to July 2026: Auto returns from the United States tick up; June is up 5.0% from June 2025 and still 24.6% below June 2024. Air travel stays below the prior year. The World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, lifts some car trips. Carney attends the final in New Jersey with Trump.
5. July 9, 2026: Brand USA says it will bring Travel Week to Canada for the first time, expanding the old Canada Connect program.
6. October 26-29, 2026: Travel Week is due in Toronto and Montreal, three days in one city and one day in the other.

Loewen said U.S. cities can still put on a good vacation. His family will not spend there until a new president is in the White House. Eileen March, a 41-year-old life coach in Calgary, had started to waver, then treated the latest tariffs as a reason to stay out for the rest of the term. She will not book a flight with a U.S. layover. On the U.S. side of the argument, the missing Canadian dollars barely register in national GDP, which is why the pain sits in motel courtyards and not in a Treasury briefing.

It’s such a big ask right now. It’s just a wasted effort.

Josh Loewen, Vancouver marketing executive

The World Cup was supposed to reset the mood. Friedland watched the hangover arrive on schedule.

You went from this really high, exciting moment for the U.S. in terms of international attention, to the next week, it’s negative again. It’s one step forward and two steps back.

Deborah Friedland, hospitality consultant, Eisner Advisory Group

Brand USA Brings Travel Week to Canada

Brand USA will stage Travel Week Canada in Toronto and Montreal from October 26 to 29, 2026, the first time the Travel Week format has run in that market. The week folds the old Canada Connect meetings into the same platform the group uses in the United Kingdom, Europe, India and South America. A CEO roundtable and a media day with Discover America Canada are on the docket. Leah Chandler, Brand USA’s chief marketing officer, said the group had kept trade and PR work going and now judged the moment right to return with a brand message, aimed at younger travellers and people whose browsing still suggests they might visit.

The U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office’s spring forecast still treats Canada as a growth market on paper. It counted 16.0 million Canadian arrivals in 2025 and has Canadian visits forecast to rise 3.8 percent to 16.6 million in 2026. That gain is off a depressed base. The same office’s first-half reading found fewer Canadian overnight visits in 2026 than in the same stretch of 2025, the trips that usually leave more money behind. June’s 5.0% rise in return crossings from the United States was almost all cars, 1.7 million automobile returns, up 7.6%, and 66.2% of those were same-day. Overnight air is the product Brand USA is selling in October. It is the product that has not come back.

March said how long she stays away will depend on who is elected next, and on the relationship that person tries to repair with Canada. Loewen’s family has not entered the United States since inauguration day. Travel Week opens October 26. Snowbird deposits come due on the same calendar, and they are the test the welcome ads have not yet passed.