The calendar has flipped to the first month of fall – but few Canadian travellers are ready to flip their stance on travel to the U.S.

And many inbound tourism operators in the U.S. are just as frustrated and saddened by the situation as the Canadian travellers they’re trying to win over, with not much luck.

A new CNN article published this weekend and making the rounds in consumer media, headlined ‘The ‘self-inflicted injury’ to US tourism that’s making some Americans angry and disappointed’, notes the long list of U.S. destinations hurting from the country’s drop in tourism, particularly from Canada, from Seattle to Las Vegas to Orlando and more.

Seattle, normally a magnet for Canadian visitors especially during the weekend series when the Toronto Blue Jays play the Seattle Mariners, is taking a hit, with tourism businesses there reporting drops up to 30% overall, and up to 50% when it comes to Canadian visitors, according to operators contributing to the article. Big drops in Canadian travellers are now the reality for cities across the country, reflecting the monthly Statistics Canada data that shows continually falling transborder numbers.

“Global Appeal is Slipping”

Meanwhile wire news service The Associated Press notes that the World Travel & Tourism Council projected ahead of Memorial Day that the U.S. would be the only country among the 184 it studied where foreign visitor spending would fall in 2025. The finding was “a clear indicator that the global appeal of the U.S. is slipping,” the global industry association said.

“This is a wake-up call for the U.S. government. The world’s biggest travel and tourism economy is headed in the wrong direction, not because of a lack of demand, but because of a failure to act,” Julia Simpson, President & CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council, said at the time. “While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the ‘closed’ sign.”

Travel research firm Tourism Economics, meanwhile, predicts the U.S. will see 8.2% fewer international arrivals in 2025, an improvement from its earlier forecast of a 9.4% decline but well below the numbers of foreign visitors to the country before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The sentiment drag has proven to be severe,” the firm said, noting that airline bookings indicate “the sharp inbound travel slowdown” of May, June and July would likely persist in the months ahead.

Back in July, at the Brand USA board meeting, tourism representatives were hopeful that transborder and international travel would pick up in time for the country’s big celebrations in 2026, including America 250.

U.S. government data confirms an overall drop-off in international arrivals during the first seven months of the year. The number of overseas visitors, a category that doesn’t include travellers from Mexico or Canada, declined by more than 3 million, or 1.6%, compared to the same period a year earlier, according to preliminary figures from the National Travel and Tourism Office.

As a tourist generator to the U.S., Western Europe was down 2.3%, with visitors from Denmark dropping by 19%, from Germany by 10%, and from France by 6.6%. A similar pattern surfaced in Asia, where the U.S. data showed double-digit decreases in arrivals from Hong Kong, Indonesia and the Philippines. Fewer residents of countries throughout Africa also had traveled to the U.S. as of July.

Executives from the major U.S. airlines said last month that American passengers booking premium airfares helped fill their international flights and that demand for domestic flights was picking up after a weaker than expected showing in the first half of 2025.

Another article published over the weekend, in The Globe and Mail, notes that many Canadian travel businesses reported a surge in summer bookings as many Canadians vacationed close to home.

Kevin Jackson, President of Porter Airlines, told the Globe that Porter’s domestic capacity this summer was up 5%, from 75% to 80%, adding that year over year bookings on domestic flights were up 20%.

With file from The Associated Press