'We had to cancel': Tourism industry at risk as largest visitor group boycotts Trump plans
Canadians are scrapping plans to visit the U.S. to protest Donald Trump's economic and geopolitical attacks on their nation.
The president has slapped 25-percent tariffs on many Canadian goods and has repeatedly stated that he wants to annex the country as the "51st state," and angry travelers from the northern neighbor say they're boycotting the U.S. – which could cost the American tourism industry billions, reported NPR.
"Obviously out of loyalty to Canada and our values and just holding our ground, we had to cancel," said Vancouver attorney Leena Yousefi, who typically visits Hawaii with her family four or five times a year. "Now we're looking at Costa Rica."
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Canadians are the largest group of foreign visitors to the U.S., according to the U.S. Travel Association, and they accounted for $20.5 billion in spending last year alone, especially in Florida, California, Nevada, New York and Texas.
"Signs of a Canadian tourist backlash are cropping up from accommodations in Vermont to campgrounds in New Jersey," NPR reported. "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 percent year over year in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and 12 percent in the Bellingham area of northwest Washington, about 50 miles south of Vancouver."
Nearly half of Canadians surveyed last month, before the tariffs even snapped into place, said they were less likely to visit the U.S. this year and intended to travel within their own country instead, and Catherine Prather, president of the National Tour Association, said she's heard from "dozens" of members who reported Canadian travelers canceling tours they'd already booked to the U.S.
"Canadians feel disrespected, and that's very challenging to them because we have always been such loyal, loyal partners," Prather said.
Lorna Hundt, CEO of Great Canadian Holidays, said most of her company's U.S. tours are now "dead in the water" because so many Canadian customers have backed out.
"The anger is not with the American people, the anger is with Donald Trump," Hundt reportedly 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?"