U.S. road trip destinations seeing signs of Canadians staying away

While Upstate New York has long been an attractive destination for road trippers from eastern Ontario and western Quebec, heated rhetoric about a U.S.-Canada trade war and annexation threats appears to be cooling interest.  

Straddling the St. Lawrence River between Ontario and New York, the Thousand Islands is so integrated, it has a bi-national tourism board that promotes destinations on both sides of the boundary.

"Regardless of anybody's feelings of the policy in the U.S. or Canada, we can unequivocally say that the rhetorical piece, the tariffs piece, the widening [exchange rate gap] is hurting Canadian visitation into the United States," said Corey Fram, director of the Thousand Islands International Tourism Council.

February saw nearly half a million fewer Canadian passenger vehicle trips across the U.S. border — a figure drawing comparisons to the drop during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fram said bookings appear to be slowing and they've seen an increase in negative comments on their promoted social media posts.

"We picked up on our ads with U.S. landmarks drawing a lot of negative responses from Canadians and then Americans pushing back and retaliating on that, so what we did was eliminate those ads facing Canadian audiences," Fram said.

He said some Americans in those comments didn't understand Canadians withholding their dollars was a way to have their voices heard.

Canadian visitors spend $40 million to $50 million US per year on the U.S. side of the Thousand Islands, Fram said. While he hasn't noted an increase in cancellations so far, he expects a measurable decrease in Canadian visitors to the American side by the end of the year.

On the Canadian side, Ross McCarney said there have been steady bookings ahead of Rockport Boat Lines cruise season.

"We're still seeing bookings from Americans, we're seeing bookings from Europeans, Asian countries and domestically in Canada," he said.

While he expects there may be a boost from Canadians choosing to vacation domestically, he's also monitoring changing U.S. travel requirements for guests wary of what that might mean. 

The Canadian-owned and operated line doesn't plan on changing its marketing material or routes.

"We're in quite a unique situation where you're buying a Canadian cruise but we're travelling into U.S. waters because we're just so close."

Their dock is about three kilometres from the U.S. border and major attractions like Boldt Castle are on U.S. islands – though depending on the tour guests won't necessarily set foot on American soil. 

Cancellations reported

Further east, in the American Adirondacks, the local tourism association has heard reports of cancellations tied to the heated rhetoric coming from Washington, D.C.

"We've seen individual families choosing not to come. We've heard of whole hockey teams choosing not to come to some of our international sporting events and then some group travel bookings," said Dan Kelleher, CEO of the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST). 

He estimates there's been a 40 per cent drop in Canadian-based web traffic on ROOST's sites for Lake Placid and other destinations. 

Kelleher said he's explained that talk of annexation and tariffs has been hurtful to Canadians and he notes people outside border communities may not understand the level of interdependence.

"If you come and walk around a lot of our communities here in the Adirondacks, you'll see Canadian flags flying right alongside American flags. You'll see signs in both English and French," he said.

"Educating people across the United States about how closely our two economies [are] linked will hopefully help drive some policy changes both at the state level and in Washington."

He said a 20 per cent drop in Canadian visitors would cost the local economy $12 million US and municipal governments $600,000 US in lost revenue.

The U.S. Travel Association says Canada is the top source of international visitors to the United States and just a 10 per cent reduction in Canadian travel could result in $2.1 billion US in lost spending – New York is one of the most visited states.

"We just want to make sure our Canadian friends know how much they're valued and loved," Kelleher said.

In the Thousand Islands, Fram said they've launched a campaign touting the Thousand Islands as a destination where "we've always met in the middle."

"We've always worked cooperatively here. We're going to keep the light on. Reconciliation is gonna start along border communities in places like the Thousand Islands," he said.