After President Trump said the U.S. would slap tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau had a message for his people: "Choose Canada."
"It might mean changing your summer vacation plans to stay here in Canada," Trudeau said in an address to the nation, "and explore the many national and provincial parks, historical sites and tourist destinations our great country has to offer."
A few weeks later, there is data indicating that some Canadians are heeding his call, even though Trump agreed to a 30-day pause on the tariff threats after Canada and Mexico both promised to tighten border security.
Globus observed a setback in Canadian demand for travel to the U.S. starting around Feb. 1, said chief marketing officer Steve Born. Bookings have since slowed to about half of what Globus typically receives, he said, adding that other destinations are not experiencing a decline: travel from Canada to Europe, Britain and Ireland continues to do well. The tour operator is also seeing an uptick in cancellations to the U.S.
"Understandably, we have seen a bit of reaction from Canada to the U.S. specifically," Born said.
Steve Born
Typically, the U.S. is the fifth most visited destination for Canadians booking with Globus, Born said. The company maintains an office in Toronto that employs sales, marketing and finance teams, plus a call center that handles operations for its Canadian tours, and in a statement Globus stressed that its "immediate and long-term focus is to reinforce our commitment to the Canadian market and advisors."
Air travel analytics firm ForwardKeys found that travel intent, measured in part by analyzing flight searches for a destination, dropped among Canadians and Mexicans for U.S. travel following Trump's inauguration and the tariffs announcement.
Flight searches from Canada dropped by 6% from Feb. 1 to 7 compared with Jan. 25 to 31, resulting in about 354,000 fewer searches. Similarly, Mexico saw a 4% reduction, or 77,000 fewer searches, during the same time period.
Mexico and Canada are the two largest source markets for U.S. inbound travel, according to the U.S. Travel Association, and a dip in visitation from Canada alone, the No. 1 source of international visitors to the U.S. with 20.4 million visits in 2024, would be very costly: A 10% reduction could mean 2 million fewer visits and $2.1 billion in lost spending, its data shows.
Air Canada during its Q4 earnings call on Feb. 14 said it was "proactively" reducing capacity to some U.S. leisure destinations, such as Florida, Las Vegas and Arizona, starting in March.
"We are anticipating, proactively, that there could be a [demand] slowdown," said Mark Galardo, executive vice president for revenue and network planning. "In our near-term bookings to the U.S., we don't see any major slowdown or anything substantial that would change our view of the market. That being said, if we can … be a bit proactive and move capacity to other sectors we see strength in, that's the right move right now in this context."
Not everyone seeing a drop
U.S. Travel, and several travel companies, said there is no evidence yet of a drop in visitation.
Speaking at the Capitol on Feb. 19, U.S. Travel CEO Geoff Freeman said he has seen no data about a reduction in travel from Canada, Mexico or any other country since Trump entered office.
Geoff Freeman
"I will stress that the U.S. received the highest number of international travelers it's ever received in 2018. That was the middle of the Trump administration," he said. "So what travelers say and what they do are not always the same thing. That said, if we have a decline in travel from any specific destination, we will share that information where it needs to be shared and work with the administration to solve for that problem."
Freeman added that countries and leaders frequently get into policy spats that do not affect people's travel decisions.
"For the record, there's nothing I heard in the discussion of trade issues that was, 'We don't want you to visit the United States,'" he said. "Indeed, we do want them coming to the United States. If that's not happening, then we've got work to do."
During Marriott International's Q4 earnings call on Feb. 11, CFO Leeny Oberg said it was "too soon to say we're seeing anything of note" regarding a downturn of Canadian or Mexican visitors. Oberg said those travelers represent a fraction of its U.S. business -- about 1% to 2% of room nights.
Outrigger Hospitality Group CEO Jeff Wagoner said there has been no noticeable decline in bookings from Canada, which is a top-three market for the Hawaii-focused hotelier.
"There's always noise when those types of things happen," Wagoner said. "We haven't seen any decline in travel at all from Canada.
And while Collette did see a dip in Canadian bookings the first week following the planned implementation of tariffs, those bookings had returned to close-to-normal by mid-February.
"So far in 2025, we are seeing incredibly strong bookings from Canada and are on pace for a record year," said Brett Walker, Collette's general manager in Canada.
U.S. destinations court Canadians
Destinations are not taking potential reductions in visitation lightly. As Travel Weekly reported earlier this month, a joint marketing campaign between Air Canada and New York City Tourism + Conventions was put on pause due to the current Canadian sentiment toward the U.S.
Canada is the No. 2 source market for New York.
Julie Coker
Still, Julie Coker, CEO of New York City Tourism + Conventions, said that as the organization monitors "the news and sentiment, we are moving full steam ahead with our global trade and press strategy to extend a warm invitation to travelers. We have just returned from Mexico to meet with media and will be back in the market for sales activities next month."
Canada and Mexico are California's top two international markets in terms of visitation and visitor spending.
Caroline Beteta
Caroline Beteta, CEO of Visit California, said the DMO was "committed to a long-term presence in both countries and will continue to work to maintain and grow strong relationships in each market."
According to Visit Florida, Canada was the top origin country for visitors to the Sunshine State in 2023, with 3.2 million. It did not respond to requests for comment.
Christina Jelski and Brinley Hineman contributed to this report.
Update: This report was updated to add the rest of a quote from Geoff Freeman that was cut off during editing.