Canadians are willing to protest with their loonies against United States President
Donald Trump
, but will their resolve withstand a frigid winter and a discounted trip on offer?
The heat is on this summer as some firm up
winter vacation plans
. Canadians are
travelling less to the U.S.
due to a widespread boycott that I’m not going to weigh in on other than I don’t want to join America.
July return trips by car from the U.S. dropped 36.9 per cent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada. It was the seventh straight month of year-over-year declines.
I, however, have crossed the border. I did a day trip to Buffalo to see the Toronto Blue Jays’ latest trade acquisition play a minor league game and I stopped at Trader Joe’s for snacks.
I’ll declare my bias. My world revolves around Buffalo, Toronto and South Florida since I divide my time between work, winter vacations and watching the Sabres, a hockey team I’ve followed since I was 10.
There are about one million so-called snowbirds in the U.S. A boycott comes at the expense of a convenient and usually cost-efficient winter getaway. If travelling to the U.S. dips and brings prices down, it will be even harder for some to stick to their convictions.
Before we get too excited about vacations potentially being on sale, the airlines are already ahead of you and are betting on a decline in demand and shifting routes.
John Grant, chief analyst at OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd., said there has been a 5.5 per cent decline in capacity planned by airlines for the winter months to the U.S. Hotspots such as Orlando have had a 10 per cent drop in capacity this winter, and Las Vegas will have to deal with a 30 per cent drop.
Airlines are building more capacity to places like Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica and Costa Rica.
“Capacity to some Asian destinations is also up,” Grant said. “There is a redistribution taking place from Canada to other markets apart from the United States. The airline industry has to put its seats somewhere.”
He said some markets now being targeted are traditionally cheaper than the U.S., so the economics were already a factor, with disdain for U.S. travel now tacked on top.
“These are cheaper markets for accommodation,” he said, adding that costlier flights are offset by lodging costs. But airlines are also now benefiting from lower fuel costs for longer-haul trips.
Tourism Economics, a division of Oxford Economics Group Ltd., is forecasting that overnight arrivals from Canada to the U.S. will decline 20 per cent in 2025 compared to 2024.
“There is an overall desire to stay in Canada and support the
Canadian tourism industry
,” Laura Baxter, an economist with the group, said, adding that cheaper gas has helped drive domestic road trips this summer. “They won’t be as popular in the winter for obvious reasons like the weather.”
Beyond the politics, the overhanging issue on travel plans will always be the loonie relative to other currencies.
“The exchange rate and its relationships with Canadians travelling to the U.S. are highly correlated,” Baxter said. “When the
Canadian dollar
goes further in the U.S. or any other country, Canadians tend to visit more often.”
Jan Freitag, national director of hospital analytics at CoStar Group Inc., said there are concerns south of the border.
“I am afraid the U.S. will be just a flyover country and the Canadians will just go straight to Mexico and the Caribbean,” he said. “We are going to see that in the numbers in Florida and Arizona.”
One positive for Canadian travel in the U.S. is hotel rates, which are mostly flat or dropping in some segments of the market.
“The U.S. hotel industry has not exactly had a lot of pricing power,” Freitag said. “Room rates for the first six months of the year are up 1.4 per cent.”
Go down the hotel food chain away from high-end luxury and there are declines in room rates in economy and mid-scale hotels.
“The American economy is bumpy. Questions of cost certainty around tariffs have impacted corporate demand,” Freitag said. “One thing that is easy to cut is travel and training. And on the leisure side, inflation is taking a bite out of budgets.”
Amra Durakovic, a spokesperson for Flight Centre Travel Group, which covers 30 brands, including its well-known retail brand, said new U.S. leisure bookings are down about 40 per cent year over year. Domestic travel is up five per cent.
Flight Centre saw a 20 per cent jump in cancellations of trips to the U.S. when the loonie hit a four-year low last November 2024. Is that due to the post-election Trump factor or the currency exchange?
“Affordability drives travel choices,” Durakovic said, adding 81 per cent of Canadians in a recent survey said exchange rates are a key consideration. That was more than any other global market.
She said her data also indicates travel growth in markets such as New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Argentina — all places where the loonie holds up strong.
“It sounds counterintuitive because they are further flights,” she said, adding that a flight to Japan will be more expensive than one to New York, but the loonie is holding up well against the yen, which closes the gap on the cost of a vacation.
Durakovic’s advice, even in the face of weaker demand from Canadians and U.S. hoteliers lowering rates, is to still book early.
“Post-pandemic, the myth of a last-minute travel deal no longer exists,” she said. “Watch for sales. Because of dynamic pricing, when demand increases, prices will go up.”
Grant agrees and adds that it’s good to be flexible.
“Maybe you just have to consider somewhere you didn’t consider before,” he said.
That could mean your winter travel plans line up well if your politics are against U.S. travel.
Me? I’ll still be shuffling off to Buffalo and hitting the boardwalk in Florida, hoping the loonie remains competitive, but with a caveat that the U.S. won’t make travel so intolerable that I don’t want to visit.
• Email: gmarr@postmedia.com
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