Travel to the U.S. down 40 per cent over last year: Flight Centre

Many Canadians are still vacationing but not in the USA. Pat Foran reports.

Many Canadians are continuing to avoid travel to the United States due to trade tensions, tariffs and other economic factors.

However, even though trips to the U.S. are down, two travel companies say the number of Canadians packing their bags for a vacation has actually increased.

Trips to the Caribbean are up as well as travel to Europe and Asia, with many people willing to go further and stay longer.

Flight Centre said Canadians choosing to travel to U.S. destinations were down substantially in 2025 and it expects that trend to continue into the New Year.

“We’re down 40 per cent year over year for travel into the U.S.,” said Anita Emilio, general manager of Flight Centre Canada. “More Canadians are now choosing to travel to Europe or down south.”

G Adventures is a Toronto-based company that specializes in small group adventure travel all over the world and it too has noticed the same pattern with Canadians bucking American destinations.

“While our bookings to the U.S. are down, it doesn’t mean Canadians are travelling less, it just means they are choosing different destinations,” said Jenna English with G Adventures.

So where are Canadians going? According to Flight Centre, these are the top spots which also showed an increase in interest from the year before.

• Turks and Caicos: +350%
• Saint Lucia: +116%
• Japan: +88%
• Colombia: +75%
• Switzerland: +64%
• Barbados: +61%
• Vietnam: +56%
• Curaçao: +53%
• Germany: +43%
• Australia: +32%

Many Canadians are also looking for good value and willing to travel further and stay longer.

“We’ve seen an incredible increase to somewhere like Japan where their Canadian dollar does stretch a bit further,” explained Emilio. “Places like Australia as well. It’s quite a flight to get there but the Canadian dollar is stronger than the Australian dollar so Canadians feel once they get there, they can really stretch their dollar.”

G Adventures said its top destinations for next year include Peru, Morocco, Costa Rica, Thailand, and Japan. It’s also finding travellers want to vacation when it’s less crowded.

“People are trying to avoid over tourism, so they are choosing to travel in quieter times and when it’s not quite as busy (spring and fall), and they can also save some money doing that as well,” said English.

English added that more people, especially women, are choosing to go on vacations by themselves but in a tour group.

“We are really popular with solo travellers, female solo travellers are our largest demographic.”

Both companies said most travel spots are filled for the upcoming holiday period, but many people are booking “fun in the sun” trips for January, February, and March. Larger destination trips to Europe or Asia are being booked now for next summer.