Like it or not, it’s happening.
International visitors are avoiding the United States. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) counts say that crossings of the northern border between the U.S. and Canada fell by 12.5% in February and 18% in March. Travel agency Flight Centre Travel Group Canada reported that business travel from Canada fell by 40% in the first months of this year, and a survey of Canadians by Longwoods International found that 60% of respondents said they were boycotting travel to their southern neighbor.
Canadian travelers make up about a quarter of all international visitors to the USA, and that loss alone is projected to cost America some $6 billion and risk more than 140,000 jobs.
But that’s just from the absence of Canadians. Other nationalities are cancelling plans to come, too.
According to the Financial Review, in March 2025, compared to the same month in 2024, the U.S. saw a 28% decline in visits from Germany, a 25% fall in visits from Spain, and an 18% reduction in travelers from the United Kingdom.
Last month, an Uber driver in Miami tried to convince me that the only reason Canadians are staying away from the United States is because the the Canadian dollar is low right now. Not politics, he said. Just the value of the loonie.
Look, I’m not going to argue about this. The surveys and the commentary are clear about the primary cause, but if you still want to know why Canadians are avoiding the USA, ask a Canadian, not me.
But it’s happening.
And as distasteful as it feels to tell travelers how they can use this self-inflicted catastrophe to save money on their own vacations, American jobs and livelihoods are at stake, so it’s worth sharing that advice. Many people will be out of work if Americans don’t try to fill the gap somehow.
Airline uncertainty means lower airfare—for now
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that as demand softened in March, airfare fell 5.3% compared to last year.
And prices are still looking low for peak summer. I found New York City to Paris for $440 round-trip in August, Chicago–Mexico City for $284 in September, and Los Angeles–Tokyo for $591 for September.
Those prices may not last long.
Right now, as summer travel is being booked, we’re in an intermediate period in which you might be able to find a good deal on international airfare before the airlines calculate just how much expected business isn’t actually materializing. Airlines are revising their financial outlooks and trimming capacity in response to sluggish sales.
“We know there are a lot of customers that are holding back in buying tickets for a little more clarity on the border and things like that,” Air France-KLM’s CEO, Ben Smith, told investors in an April 29 earnings call.
You can use this moment of hesitation. If you find a good deal on a flight overseas for the summer right now, grab it—once you’ve bought your ticket, the airlines can’t charge you more later, even if they decide to reduce flight capacity later on.
But you might find that when the day of your travel arrives, you’ve been moved to another flight. Or your may find the large aircraft you expected to take is swapped out for a smaller one—and you might lose your original seat assignment because of it.
If you wait too long to book international flights, by that time the airlines might have caught up to the situation with newly reduced options and, consequently, higher prices.
Using the boycotts to find hotel deals
For deals on the ground at home, such as at hotels, look to the places where flights have have already been canceled.
Air Canada has yanked flights to Miami, Washington, Houston, and San Francisco. United Airlines cancelled or scaled back flights between Canada and Los Angeles. Flair Airlines has ceased flying to Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, and Phoenix. WestJet was about to start flights to Austin, but it pulled the plug before they began. And so on.
In that list of cities, you can see where tourism by Canadians is already suffering. Because all those planeloads of Canadians are no longer flying to all-American destinations like Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Florida, and Nashville, then you know that those places have lost tourists by the hundreds and thousands.
And so in the list of cities where airlines have ceased or curtailed flying, many of them warm-weather destinations favored by snowbirds, you may be more likely to find deals on hotels and tours that our Canadian friends have abandoned.
Even some U.S. locations closer to the Canadian border that aren’t seeing many flight reductions are still seeing fewer international visitors. According to Statistics Canada, in March, the volume of Canadians crossing the border by motor vehicle dropped 32% compared to the same month in 2024.
Maine, New York City, Seattle, and Detroit are also usually flush with Canadian visitors. Their absence will put a dent in hotel occupancy that could translate into a better chance of a discount for the people who are still going there.
Orlando, too, is a place where international visitors usually gather in force. This month, interest in Central Florida is high because of the opening of Universal’s new theme park, Epic Universe, but later in the year, that surge of new interest will subside, and the gap left by our foreign friends will become more pronounced. Disney World has already rolled out some big discounts to try to entice more visitors this summer.
Other potential soft spots for travel
Keep an eye on cruises as well. Outside of the United States, travelers are beginning take stock of which cruise lines are American-owned—surprise: it’s most of them—so that they can patronize the lines that aren’t. So far, there hasn’t been enough widespread awareness of U.S. ownership of major cruise lines to make a significant dent in bookings, but as this boycott gains ground, it could become a new battleground for discounts.
It’s worth pointing out that the American boycotts are not reciprocal. Other nationalities are boycotting Americans, but Americans are not boycotting other countries in return. For March, while other people from other countries were abandoning travel to the US, ITA Data reported a 5% year-over-year increase in Americans traveling abroad.
That’s a definitive sign that most Americans do not share the animus of their leaders. This is a battle that is coming from the cloistered rooms of Washington, not from the people.
This is a hideous situation, and as someone who has devoted his career to encouraging people to travel and learn to appreciate what every culture brings to the global party, it’s heartbreaking to see political walls being thrown up between the people of the world.
What I want most is to see Americans rise up against these unnecessary and destructive divisions that are sowing the seeds of tragedy.
But until that happens, I at least want to be able to mitigate some of the damage being done to our hospitality industries. Domestic tourism is being slaughtered by the United States’ politics. If you can, support the local businesses that are being most impacted by this ugliness that they did not request.
