Canadians continued to shun travel to the U.S. in October

A Canada Border Services Agency officer is silhouetted as motorists enter Canada at the Douglas-Peace Arch border crossing, in Surrey, B.C., on Monday, Aug. 9, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

MONTREAL - Canadians continued to steer clear of the United States in October, with the month marking yet another major drop in year-over-year visitors.

The number of Canadian residents who returned by car from the U.S. fell to 1.4 million in October, a 30.5 per cent drop from the same period in 2024, according to preliminary data from Statistics Canada.

The decrease marked the 10th straight month of lower volumes, beginning the month after U.S. President Donald Trump was elected.

The number of Canadians returning home from south of the border by air sank to 437,300, down 24 per cent.

Growing aversion to America can be chalked up to political tensions over Trump’s tariffs and 51st-state rhetoric, fear of potential treatment at the border as well as exchange rates -- the loonie is worth about 71 cents US.

Many travellers are looking beyond the States for getaways abroad. More than 964,000 Canadians flew back from overseas last month, a year-over-year increase of nearly seven per cent, StatCan said.

The ramp-up is such that Canadians gave a big boost to otherwise sagging profits at Air France-KLM in its latest quarter, with bookings from this country up 30 per cent from a year earlier.

With Canadians avoiding stateside trips, Americans are feeling the pain.

The United States will see travel spending by foreign visitors drop by US$5.7 billion or 3.2 per cent this year, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

“Significantly fewer visits from Canada are the primary driver of this decrease, and the volume of visits from countries other than Canada are expected to be flat,” the association said in its travel forecast last month.

“Outdated systems, excessive visa wait times and new travel deterrents are driving global visitors elsewhere,” it added, with no explicit reference to the trade war.

Multiple states have rolled out tourism campaigns designed to win Canadians back.

In California, Canadian visitors are expected to spend US$3 billion this year versus US$3.7 billion in 2024, said Ryan Becker, a senior vice-president at Visit California, a non-profit corporation that launched the “California Loves Canada” campaign with Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this year.

“That’s a gut punch to the industry,” Becker said last week from Toronto, where he accompanied a delegation of more than a dozen Golden State tourism executives on a tour that included Calgary and Vancouver.

“This is not something that we are taking lightly.”

For their part, Americans are starting to turn up north of the border more frequently after a notable dip through much of the year.

The number of U.S.-resident trips to Canada by car amounted to one million last month, down less than a percentage point from October 2024, StatCan said.

Overall, non-resident arrivals totalled 784,800 in October, up 4.2 per cent from a year ago.

The preliminary total of international arrivals to Canada in October including both returning Canadian residents and non-residents by air and automobile was 4.6 million, down 12.6 per cent from October 2024.

By Christopher Reynolds.