U.S. trips to Canada on the rise as holiday travel gets underway

Canadian and U.S. flags fly atop the Peace Arch monument at the Douglas-Peace Arch border crossing in Surrey, B.C., Monday, Nov. 8, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

If Canadians are making a travel list this holiday season, one location you likely won’t find for many, even if you check it twice, is a U.S. destination.

The number of Canadian-resident return trips from the United States was down 26.3 per cent from a year ago, according to new data from Statistics Canada.

Canadian-resident return trips by car dropped 30.2 per cent to 1.6 million in October, while trips by air, dropped by around 15 per cent.

“I’m definitely seeing it. I’m seeing it firsthand – so the numbers don’t lie – is a good way of putting it,” said Martin Firestone, president of Travel Secure Inc. “You are getting people who are saying: ‘I just don’t want to be part of this or anything that is going on right now in the U.S.,’ and are opting to travel elsewhere.”

Political turmoil with the current U.S. administration erupted soon after Donald Trump returned to the White House. He began poking fun at America’s northern neighbour, with repeated calls for Canada to become the 51^st state and attacking Canada’s sovereignty.

During the busy holiday travel season, Toronto’s Pearson International Airport expects 3.2 million passengers between Dec. 17 to Jan. 5. For Canada’s busiest airport, that is about 171,000 passengers per day during high traffic periods on around 1,000 flights.

According to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), Pearson has seen slight growth in overall passenger volumes to the end of the third quarter, which increased by 300,000, or 0.7 per cent, to 35.8 million, when compared to the same period in 2024.

GTAA says this was largely driven by strong domestic growth that was partially offset by a decline in transborder travel, which is travel to and from the United States.

It is a similar story at Vancouver International Airport (YVR). The western hub is on track for a record year in overall passenger numbers, but has seen a noticeable decline in passengers to and from the U.S.

YVR has recorded roughly 5.3 million arriving and departing U.S. travellers through the end of October, a decrease of 5.9 per cent during the same time frame in 2024.

Meanwhile, the number of trips to Canada by U.S. residents in October totalled 1,814,406, up three per cent compared with 1,760,987 the same month last year.

The number of trips to Canada by overseas residents in October totalled 548,992, up 11.7 per cent from 491,296 a year ago.

Arrivals from Europe rose 10.5 per cent compared with a year ago, while arrivals from Asia gained 14.9 per cent.

With files from The Canadian Press