Joe Koenen hasn’t seen a single Blue Jays cap all summer.
Canadians typically flood the streets of Seattle over the summer, but Koenen, who runs Seattle Free Walking Tours (where people pay what they can and want for the tour), said Canadian tourists have almost disappeared. The streets seem more empty.
The Canadians who call to cancel their tours – “I was explicitly told that it was because of the policies and behavior of our current president,” he said.
As a result of seeing 30 per cent fewer customers this year overall, Koenen has been paying its employees, but not himself. This is also the first year since he took over the tour company in 2021, in which he has had to invest his own savings in the business to keep himself afloat.
I’m super-super-a-news. “I’m disappointed too, but I’m sadder… It’s a self-inflicted wound,” Koenen said.
Another Seattle tour operator, John Brink, said you’re usually doing amazing that weekend, referring to the annual May series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners. But this year, there was no flow of people. The Blue Jays are the only Canadian Major League Baseball team, so while the team is from Toronto, many Western Canadian fans look passionately at their Blue Jays’ clothes when they come to Seattle every summer.
Brink’s company, Tasty Tours, which guides visitors to food stalls at the historic Pike Place Market, has seen a 50 per cent drop in Canadian customers.
Many Canadians have boycotted travel to the United States and the purchase of U.S. products since the spring. That’s when President Trump made false claims and derogatory comments about Canada amid a tariff war.
The absence of Canadians has been felt especially in the United States, especially in cities like Seattle, near the northern border. And Canadians are not the only international travelers to avoid the United States. Some other international travelers have also mentioned recent policies on tariffs and immigration as reasons to stay away.
After a promising estimate in December by analytics company Tourism Economics, which projected 9 percent growth in total international arrivals in the United States in 2025, the company’s updated outlook now estimates an 8.2 percent drop, led by a reduction of about a quarter of Canadians visiting the U.S. from January to July, compared to the same period in 2024.
The World Travel and Tourism Council, a global tourism promotion organization, projected in May that the United States will lose $12.5 billion in international visitor spending by 2025, the only country in 184 economies analyzed by the council that will see a decline this year.
In the wrong direction
And that pain could extend beyond this year. Rob Hawkins of the UK changed the plans he and his wife had for a 20-day trip during the spring of 2026 to the US to go instead to South Korea and Japan.
“For me, America is rock roll, NASA, speed, jazz, horses, bourbon, hip-hop, dance, MTV (the original), Hollywood, gold medals, innovation, strength, respectful [si, and apple pie,” Hawkins told CNN by email. “Not the army in the streets and the extreme division currently on display,” he said, referring to the presence of the National Guard in Los Angeles during immigration control raids and in the city of Washington to take federal control of the local police force.
The Hawkins’ decision to avoid the United States for now is repeated on social media by other people around the world.
“It’s unheard of,” Didier Arino, CEO of the travel consultancy Protourisme in France, said about an unprecedented drop in interest in travel to the United States.
“It has happened before in a country at war, in a country where there was a risk of security, or of health crises, but in a normal situation, we have never seen this kind of radical change,” Arino told CNN in the spring.
Beyond quoting the fear of being interrogated at the border, or the general opposition to the policies of the Trump administration, visitors from some countries now face an initial additional cost of $250 for a new visa integrity rate.
This is a wake-up call for the U.S. government. The world’s largest travel and tourism economy is going in the wrong direction, not because of a lack of demand, but due to a lack of action, said Julia Simpson, president and executive director of the World Travel and Tourism Council, in a statement.
While other countries deploy the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting the “closed” sign…. This has to do with the growth of the U.S. economy: it is possible, but it requires leadership from D.C.,” Simpson said.
It’s not just me.
For Brink, the owner of Tasty Tours in Seattle, American cruise passengers arriving in town have partly offset the loss of international tourists.
Still, I personally believe that without the tariffs, rhetoric, and all that nonsense, we would all have made a lot more money this year,” Brink said.
Adam Duford, owner of Surf City Tours in Santa Monica, California, has also felt the pain of a fall in tourism.
“The spring break never happened,” Duford said. The Day of the Fallen, either.
Duford’s business, which offers van tours for 13 passengers across Hollywood, Malibu, and Venice, had a fall this year due to geopolitical forces, catastrophic fires, and disinformation.
He told CNN that customers were calling to cancel because they had seen a fake image on social media of the Hollywood sign burning. (That sign, and all of Hollywood, they’re still there.) Duford points to misinformation about the January fires in Los Angeles and, later, the misperception that protests over immigration raids had taken the entire city, as examples of why some stayed away.
Overall, its revenue has fallen by 49 per cent this year. Duford thought it was maybe a specific problem with the events in Los Angeles. But he also noticed that his usual Canadian clientele arriving during his spring recess did not appear this year, and learned about business in other cities also affected by the lack of tourists.
“It’s hard to be angry, because it’s not just me,” he said. With all the promises of a good economy, perhaps people thought we would sacrifice some things in the cultural war because of this good economy that will come with this administration. That doesn’t look like it’s happening.
Before the most recent challenges, international tourism to the United States had not yet fully recovered after the pandemic. Last year, the 72.4 million visitors from other countries accounted for 91 percent of the 2019 pre-demographic figures, according to the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office.
Tourism Economics, which tracks data on national and international tourism, now projects that a full recovery at pre-pandemic levels will not occur until 2029, three years later than originally planned.
According to Tourism Economics, domestic tourism has not been strong enough to compensate for the loss.
Neighbors of the north that look south
That Canadians are moving away from the U.S. is particularly troubling.
More Canadians visit the U.S. than visitors from any other country, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. Canadians accounted for about 28 percent of total international arrivals in 2024.
Instead of traveling to the United States, we’re seeing Canadian travel begin to increase to Mexico, the Caribbean, and even Europe in recent data, said Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics.
I do think that when we get to the coldest months, it’ll be hard to maintain this kind of descent. I think there’ll be some rebound. But as long as the rhetoric around this continues, like Canada will become state 51 of the US, as long as that goes on, I think we will see a fairly sustained reaction from Canadians.
Airlines have adjusted by changing routes that originally went to the U.S. There were about 90,20fewer availablele plane seats to book from Canada to the U.S. between April 1 and June 30, compared to the same quarter last year, according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm.
No wonder Koenen and Brink are seeing so few Canadians in Seattle: Tourism Economics estimates Seattle will lose more than a quarter of its international visitors this year, mostly because Canadians are staying away.
Is that really a hard thing?ng. I think what we see as our opportunity is simply to be ready to welcome our friends from Canada when the time is right. “It’s not the time yet,” said Michael Woody, Director of Strategy at Visit Seattle.
Mike Mondello, who owns the Made in Washington stores in the Seattle region, which sell products from local artists and producers, said he realized during the spring news cycle that this is going to be a different year.
Undoubtedly, he said that the cooling of the business in his downtown store has been disappointing. But Mondello said that time heals everything.
You won’t wake up on a Monday and say, “Wow, things have changed.” “He’ll just recover little by little, I’m pretty sure,” Mondello said.
Woody believes there is an opportunity with the FIFA World Cup in 2026, when his Seattle marketing team will collaborate with Destination Vancouver. Seattle and Vancouver are the second closest geographic group among all FIFA host cities, and match schedules have been aligned so viewers can easily travel and watch matches on either side of the border.
Woody expects about 750,000 people to come in and out of Seattle during the three weeks of those games.
Still, Sacks of Tourism Economics warns that across the US, the estimated increase in visitors to the World Cup in 2026 will not be enough to overcome the damage caused this year.
We’re here when you’re ready.
Canadians have also been retiring from other favorite destinations across the country, including Orlando, home to the nation’s largest cluster of theme parks.
Canadian air arrivals in Orlando declined until May, and advance hotel reservations have slowed markedly since April, according to Casandra Matej, president and chief executive of Visit Orlando. But other visitors from the UK, Brazil, and Mexico are still arriving in constant numbers.
Steve Hill, executive director of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority, told CNN that he recently returned from a sales mission in Vancouver. These are routine trips for his team, but Hill said he personally wanted to attend this time to listen to more than 100 tour operators and travel agents about the situation in Canada.
What he heard was not surprising: a certain proportion of Canadians will not visit the US at this point by principle.
“Trying to get them to overcome that significantly, I don’t think it works very well,” Hill said. What we told you is, you know, we’re here when you’re ready. We hope you’re ready soon.
Las Vegas has seen a drop in both domestic and international tourists. The latest available data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, from January to July 2025, shows that the total volume of visitors has dropped by 8 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.
Hill said other international tourists have still arrived in relatively stable numbers. He also believes there will be more Canadians returning in autumn and winter, when they often escape the cold and enjoy the hockey season in Las Vegas.
Both Tourism Economics and several city tourism offices told CNN they urgently need Congress to fully fund Brand USA, a public-private partnership that directs globally coordinated marketing efforts to promote the U.S. as a top-notch tourist destination. In July, Congress cut federal counterpart funds for Brand USA from $100 million to $20 million.
Hawkins, the London resident who decided not to make his trip next year, said he expects the situation to improve, so he and his wife can still travel to Yellowstone and Las Vegas in 2027.
“I see working Americans just as I see local business owners here in the UK,” Hawkins wrote to CNN, adding that he would hate to see them suffer because of government decisions. I wouldn’t mind the political affiliation that the owners had, as I find that if you take politics away from any conversation (which I often do), you’re practically going to have good things in common with people.
Vivian Song contributed to this report.
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