Will Trump’s tariffs affect your travel plans to Mexico and Canada?
Is this the moment for a spring break in Mexico or Canada?
The idea might seem iffy as the Trump administration confounds its neighbors by toggling tariffs on and off and throwing countless jobs into doubt. Yet for travelers, industry veterans say, this seesaw experience won’t make an immediate difference to the cost of flights or lodgings in Mexico or Canada.
Because the tariffs are based on goods crossing borders, not people, they don’t directly affect airlines and hotels. But the tariff battle may also bring indirect effects that could bump up travelers’ costs, anxieties or both.
In all three countries, restaurants may soon be paying more for ingredients and passing along the expense. In the Canadian province of Ontario, Premier Doug Ford ordered government-run liquor stores to take American alcohol products off their shelves.
At the marketing organization Destination Vancouver, communications director Suzanne Walters said some U.S. groups “are putting a hold on their near-term events” in Vancouver — not because of tariffs but “because of job losses or cuts in government funding.”
When it comes to leisure travelers, “it’s business as usual,” she said. “Our focus remains on being open and welcoming to all our visitors and that certainly includes our American friends.”
But the relationship is increasingly complicated. A March 5 “Trump Tariff Tracker” web survey by Canadian polling firm Leger found that while 60% of Americans surveyed said they considered Canada an ally, just 31% of Canadians said the same of the U.S. — and 30% said they now see the U.S. as an enemy.
Meanwhile in southern Baja California, “we have not seen any effect on bookings,” said Rodrigo Esponda, managing director of the Los Cabos Tourism Board. In fact, Esponda said, the number of flights from California into Los Cabos is due to rise with the addition of nonstop service from Oakland on March 20 and Ontario in June.
“Nobody,” Esponda said, “is connecting the ongoing [tariff] conversations with the hospitality element in the destination.”
March is the destination’s busiest month of the year, Esponda said, attracting more than 300,000 visitors. As annual tourism to Los Cabos has grown from 2.7 million in 2019 to 3.7 million in 2024, average hotel rates there have risen to $450 a night.
The tariff hostilities, simmering for weeks, escalated on Tuesday, when the Trump administration imposed a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada, alleging that those countries are both soft on drug smugglers, though statistics show Canada’s role in U.S. drug smuggling is minimal.
Canada then said it would phase in 25% tariffs on many U.S. goods over the next three weeks. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who warned that nobody would win under Trump’s proposal, said Mexico would retaliate and called Trump’s claims of Mexican drug-trade corruption “offensive, defamatory and without support.”
Next, Trump moved to exclude automobiles from the measures. And then on Thursday — two days into the new tariffs — Trump reversed course and said he would delay tariffs on many Canadian and Mexican goods until April 2. (Trump also has boosted tariffs on China by 10%, with retaliation by China expected in the coming days.)
Airfares and hotel rates aside, the posturing and rhetoric have already turned off some prospective travelers, especially in Canada.
Another Leger survey found that 16% of Canadian respondents had canceled trips to the U.S., while 1% of American respondents had canceled trips to Canada.
If higher tariffs are imposed and last several weeks or more, travel industry veterans say they would expect a slump in cross-border business travel, a key source of income for airlines and hotels. With fewer business travelers, airlines might reduce the number of flights, charge leisure travelers more or charge less and hope to stimulate demand.
“If they see that kind of drop-off, you’ll see smaller planes and less frequency and higher costs,” said John DiScala, publisher of the JohnnyJet.com newsletter and a frequent visitor to Canada. DiScala noted that last month, as the tariff conflict was heating up, Air Canada announced that it would reduce service to multiple U.S. cities.
In the much longer term, higher tariffs would boost the cost of building, buying and leasing jets, putting stress on airlines to boost prices.
Even if the current standoff cools down, bad blood could linger, several industry-watchers have said — and not just in Canada. One snap survey, conducted the day after President Trump’s address to Congress, found that 72% of veteran travelers expect that Americans abroad “will be less welcome and perceived more negatively” as a result of Trump’s global trade policies.
The survey, conducted by Global Rescue, a provider of medical care, security and risk-management services to travelers, queried more than 1,100 travelers after President Trump’s speech to Congress Tuesday.
“The data is clear — travelers are expecting a shift in how they are received abroad,” said Dan Richards, CEO of the Global Rescue Companies, in a prepared statement. “This doesn’t mean Americans should cancel their travel plans, but they should be aware of their surroundings, practice cultural sensitivity, and take proactive steps to mitigate potential risks.”
On March 3, openjaw.com reported that FlightCentre Travel Group Canada had seen a 40% drop in Canadians booking leisure trips to the U.S.
Still, when it comes to Canadian hosts’ attitude toward American visitors, DiScala said he didn’t expect a lot of fireworks. “Will Americans be welcome? All my Canadian readers said they will be, unless they wear a MAGA hat or ’51st state’ shirt,” he said. “They don’t think that’s funny at all. And I don’t blame them.”
Meanwhile in Mexico, there’s another tariff situation for travelers to keep in mind. In December 2024, Mexico’s Senate approved a $42-a-head tax on inbound foreign cruise passengers, to take effect July 1.
The move drew protests from cruise lines but is far from unique. Foreign tourists arriving in Mexico by air were already being assessed a comparable tax. Also, in the last two years, destinations in New Zealand, Greece and Iceland have imposed or boosted taxes on visiting cruise passengers.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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As Canadians cancel trips due to Trump, the U.S. tourism industry could lose billions
By
Joe Hernandez
People take pictures with the Las Vegas sign in that city on July 29, 2023. Tourism industry leaders warn that recent actions by the Trump administration may be causing a drop in Canadians traveling to the U.S.
Leena Yousefi and her family typically visit Hawaii four or five times a year. The Vancouver attorney used to live in Maui and had booked another trip for this year.
But that was before President Trump, shortly after taking office in January, said he would impose 25% tariffs on many Canadian goods and repeated his wish to turn the country into the 51st U.S. state.
“Obviously out of loyalty to Canada and our values and just holding our ground, we had to cancel,” Yousefi said.
Her family was even considering buying a two-bedroom condo in Hawaii given how often they vacation there. “But now we’re looking at Costa Rica,” she said.
The Trump administration’s recent attacks on its northern neighbor have been met with confusion, frustration and anger by many Canadians, some of whom are now abandoning their trips south and boycotting travel to the U.S. in protest.
Tourism industry leaders say that could pose a major threat to the U.S. travel sector, which relies heavily on Canadian visitors. According to the U.S. Travel Association, Canadians are the largest group of foreign visitors to the U.S. annually and accounted for $20.5 billion in spending last year alone.
Florida, California, Nevada, New York and Texas are the top U.S. states for Canadian tourists.
Signs of a Canadian tourist backlash are cropping up from accommodations in Vermont to campgrounds in New Jersey.
Bookings at U.S. hotels just over the Canadian border are also down. The data analytics firm CoStar Group found that the demand for hotel rooms in a four-week period covering part of January and most of February had decreased 8% year over year in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and 12% in the Bellingham area of northwest Washington, about 50 miles south of Vancouver.
Catherine Prather, president of the U.S.-based National Tour Association, said she’s heard reports from “dozens” of members about Canadian travelers cancelling the tours they had booked to the U.S. — particularly in response to Trump’s stated goal of annexing the longtime ally. “Canadians feel disrespected, and that’s very challenging to them because we have always been such loyal, loyal partners,” she said.
Not everyone is as worried about a potential decline in Canadian travel to the U.S.
Beth Potter, president of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, said there has been an increase in Canadians booking domestic vacations but that the tourism industry is viewing the situation as a “small blip” in the longstanding relationship between the two countries.
Marriott recently downplayed concerns that Canadians would quit traveling to the U.S., and Air Canada Executive Vice President Mark Galardo said in an earnings call that there “could be a slowdown” but that the carrier wasn’t seeing it yet.
Still, according to a poll released last month by the market research firm Leger, nearly half of Canadians surveyed said they were less likely to travel to the U.S. this year. Most of them said they planned to travel within Canada instead.
The shift in Canadians’ travel preferences dovetails with a souring national mood toward the U.S. An Ipsos poll for Global News released in early February, after Trump had announced the tariffs, found that 68% of residents surveyed thought less of their southern neighbor.
Lorna Hundt, CEO of the tour company Great Canadian Holidays, said most of the firm’s U.S. tours are now “dead in the water” because so many of their Canadian customers have backed out.
“The anger is not with the American people. The anger is with Donald Trump,” Hundt said. “And the feeling is that if he is going to go to war with Canada — something we never asked for, an economic war — then why on Earth would they spend a nickel in the United States when they don’t have to?”
In early February, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau encouraged Canadians to spend their money domestically in response to the U.S. tariffs.
“It might mean changing your summer vacation plans to stay here in Canada and explore the many national and provincial parks, historical sites and tourist destinations our great country has to offer,” Trudeau said.
Tourism industry leaders say it’s too early to tell how much of an impact would be felt by a dip in Canadian tourism, but estimates suggest the U.S. has a lot to lose if Canadians snub the States en masse.
Prather of the National Tour Association said cancellations could mean “millions” in lost revenue to tour companies, hotels, restaurants and more. The U.S. Travel Association estimated that even a 10% reduction in Canadian tourism to the U.S. would spell a $2.1 billion drop in spending and a loss of 14,000 American jobs.
An expanded trade war ensnaring Canada, Mexico, China and even Europe, according to the research firm Tourism Economics, could result in a $22 billion loss in tourism revenue from international visitors.
This all comes as the tourism industry continues to dig out of the hole left by the COVID-19 pandemic, which clobbered the hospitality sector.
American Bus Association President Fred Ferguson says there are still more American tourists leaving the country than there are foreign visitors coming in, but Canadian travelers are helping lessen that deficit.
“Canada has been one of the bright spots post-COVID of closing the gap, but I think with the rhetoric, with the news, we are going to see slowdowns in Canadian travel,” Ferguson said.
And it’s not just the resentment created by the tariffs but also the tariffs themselves that will impact the U.S. tourism industry. The association says motor coach equipment manufacturers are mainly located in Canada and Europe, and many motor coach buses are imported.
Those economic pressures are squeezing the U.S. tourism industry just as it prepares for the busy spring and summer travel seasons, Ferguson added.
“We’re just now kind of ramping up to be hosting this influx of visitation,” he said. “And I think people are really concerned that if this rhetoric continues — which seemingly it is — people are just going to say, ‘You know what, we’re not coming. We’re going to stay local, stay in Canada, stay in Europe, and not deal with the U.S.’ “
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