U.S. sees 33% drop in car trips by Canadians as summer travel starts
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
U.S. sees 33% drop in car trips by Canadians as summer travel starts
In June, Canadian-resident return trips by automobile from the U.S. plunged 33.1% from a year ago. Canadians returned from just 8 million trips, well below the 11 million entries during the same period in 2024. Canada’s total tourism spending is expected to grow between 2% and 4% this year despite an anticipated 5%-10% decline in U.s. spending, an economist says.
Bloomberg
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Canadians are committed to ditching U.S. travel, taking the fewest number of car trips there in the year’s first half since at least 2017, excluding the pandemic.
Over the past six months, Canadians returned from just 8 million trips, well below the 11 million entries during the same period in 2024, according to Statistics Canada data released Thursday. In June, Canadian-resident return trips by automobile from the U.S. plunged 33.1% from a year ago.
The sixth straight monthly drop underscores a movement among Canadians who are deliberately avoiding U.S. vacations and products to protest President Donald Trump’s threats to their country’s economy and sovereignty.
The number of U.S. car trips to Canada also fell for the fifth consecutive month, dropping 10.4% in June. The drop coincided with both the trade war and a weaker U.S. dollar, which fell more than 5% against the loonie in the first half of the year.
Canadians’ return trips by air from other countries rose 7.3% in June, while those from the United States dropped 22%. Tourist arrivals from the United States decreased 0.7%, and those from other countries were at similar levels to last year.
“These trends are particularly promising as ongoing U.S. tensions appear to be influencing some global tourists to consider Canada as an alternative destination,” Anusha Arif, economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, said in an interview.
Other indicators, including airport screening data, also showed a “significant shift” toward domestic travel among Canadians, she said.
Canada’s total tourism spending is expected to grow between 2% and 4% this year despite an anticipated 5%-10% decline in U.S. spending, Arif said. That’s because a strong increase in the number of Canadian and other international visitors is expected to compensate for fewer American tourists.