The demarcation line marking the border between Canada and the United States is seen in the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel in May. Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
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Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
On a typical day at Bluff Point Golf Resort in Plattsburgh, N.Y., you used to be able to spot around 20 or 30 cars from Quebec or Ontario in the parking lot, according to owner Paul Dame.
But over the last several months, at the business just 25 minutes from the U.S.-Canada border, it has been more like one or two cars.
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“It’s tough, because we’ve developed this relationship with the cross-border economy,” Dame said. “And now here we are, the rug getting pulled out from underneath us.”
New data confirms that far fewer Canadians are making trips south. Canadian residents made just 1.7 million return trips by motor vehicle back into their country from the U.S. in July, a nearly 37% drop from the same month in 2024, according to a report published this month by Statistics Canada.
The dip comes as relations are strained between the U.S. and Canada after President Trump vowed to make Canada a U.S. state earlier this year and imposed steep tariffs on his northern neighbor. Some worried that the tough political rhetoric — combined with a strong U.S. dollar — would damage an important source of U.S. tourism.
Data released by the U.S. government confirms a similar slide in Canadian travel. Canadians made just over 7 million visits to the U.S. between January and May, according to statistics published by the International Trade Administration. That’s a nearly 17% decrease compared with the same period in 2024, data shows.
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The U.S. Travel Association said in an emailed statement to NPR that its “latest view continues to show a decline in travel from Canadian residents to the United States, consistent with the recent Canadian data released.”
Leah Mueller, vice president of sales and services at Visit Buffalo Niagara, said tourism companies in her region have been feeling the impact of a drop in Canadian travel too, from smaller tour groups to tour boats with fewer passengers.
“It’s a decline that’s not stopping things from happening, but it is affecting the revenue that people are collecting,” she said.
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The U.S. saw 20.4 million visits from Canadians last year, making Canada the top source of international tourists to the United States, the U.S. Travel Association reported. The group said in February that those visits generated $20.5 billion in spending and supported 140,000 U.S. jobs.
There have been some efforts to soften the blow of the tourism slump.
In June, Maine Gov. Janet Mills made an official visit to Canada to urge Canadians to visit her border state. Maine, which saw nearly 800,000 Canadian visits in 2024, also installed new road signs welcoming travelers from the north, reading: “Bienvenue, Canadiens!”
Dame, the golf resort owner, said he has redirected some of his marketing efforts to other parts of New York and Vermont. But he said he hopes the U.S. and Canada can repair their relationship, and in the meantime he doesn’t blame his longtime Canadian customers for skipping their trips following the political attacks.
“It’s a very personal situation. They’ve been attacked personally, and it’s emotional,” he said. “It’s something that we would react [to] the same way if the opposite was happening to us.”
