Flight Centre survey shows Canadian travel to the U.S. down 40 per cent

It’s been a Canadian tradition to fly down south for the holidays and get a break from the snow, but all of that has changed after a turbulent year with our next-door neighbour.

According to local travel agencies, Canadians are increasingly choosing destinations other than the United States, with trips to the sunny south and Europe on the rise, and travellers more willing to go further and extend their vacation.

A low Canadian dollar, political factors and border issues are among the reasons for the startling drop. Flight Centre Canada General Manager Anita Emilio says travellers are looking for a stress-free experience, where they feel safe and where their dollar stretches further. 

“We’ve consistently seen a 40 per cent reduction in travellers travelling to the US,” says Emilio. “We’ve seen airlines introduce routes where they’ve pulled planes off of routes down to the U.S. and they’re now travelling into different destinations.”

According to Flight Centre, the Turks and Caicos, Saint Lucia and Japan top the list of growing destinations among Canadians. Travel domestically to Western and Eastern Canada has also increased. 

U.S. Travel & Tourism expert Amir Elyon says there have been efforts across the board from various American destinations, whether at the state level or individual cities, launching their own initiatives to encourage Canadians to come back.

“Canadians are one of our two largest international markets, inbound markets, to the U.S. So you’re talking about billions of dollars of visitor spending that wasn’t occurring,” said Eylon.

CityNews spoke with travellers at Pearson Airport who had mixed reactions.

“I don’t really like the idea of economically supporting the people we are at economic war with, so I spend my money elsewhere,” said one traveller.

“We are originally U.S. citizens, and now we’re dual citizens with Canada, but we do see family multiple times every year, so we’re not going to stop going, but we’re boycotting other things,” said another.

Meanwhile, Flight Centre says it doesn’t foresee this trend changing anytime soon.

“Based on the surveys we’ve done and our UGov data, it does look like it’ll be a prolonged choice that Canadians will make to spend their travel dollars in different destinations,” said Emilio.

Flight Centre says travellers are already locking in warm weather escapes from January through March and overseas vacations to Asia and Europe for the summer.