Visits by Canadians to Florida dropped by 15% in the third quarter of 2025 as political tensions triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs and other economic factors extended a chill for “snowbird” travelers. File Photo by Graham Hughes/EPA
Feb. 9 (UPI) — As strained relations between Canada and the Trump administration enter a second year, the latest statistics and anecdotal evidence indicate the flight of Canadian “snowbirds” from Florida is still negatively affecting its vital tourism economy.
Angry Canadians have been engaged in an unofficial boycott of U.S. travel since early early last year, when a newly re-elected President Donald Trump began to repeatedly voice his desire to annex Canada as the “51st state” and slapped tariffs on broad sectors of the Canadian economy.
And rather than losing steam, the slowdown of Canadian visitors to Florida and elsewhere in United States appears to be holding steady if not picking up speed as the 2025-26 winter tourism season progresses.
Travel statistics recently released by Canadian and Florida officials are continuing to show the effects of the slowdown, which has been blamed not only on political tensions, but also on a weak Canadian dollar and other economic factors.
In November, the number of Canadian-resident return trips from the United States was down 23.6% year-over-year, Statistics Canada reported Jan. 23.
Meanwhile, Visit Florida reported that while overall tourism was up 3.2% year-over-year during the third quarter of 2025, visits by Canadians were down 15% and have plunged 28% when compared to 2019’s pre-pandemic levels.
The third-quarter total of 507,000 Canadian visitors was the lowest for any single quarter since the COVID-19-affected fourth quarter of 2021, when the state logged just 275,000 Canadians visitors.
After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis initially dismissed reports of the sharp dropoff in Canadian visitors, state tourism officials now say they are planning to reach out to their North American neighbors in hopes of attracting more visitors.
Visit Florida President and CEO Bryan Griffin told members of the agency’s executive committee Jan. 26 he is setting up a meeting with Canadian officials to “see what we can do” to boost the flow of tourists, the News Service of Florida reported last week.
His task may be a big one, however, as the numbers continue their negative trends and seem likely to stay depressed, or perhaps even worsen, as the year progresses, according to a noted Canadian travel expert.
Frédéric Dimanche, a professor and former director of the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Toronto Metropolitan University, said he’s not seeing any signs of the situation improving.
“I don’t think things have changed, and if you look at the recent Statistics Canada data for car returns and employment and this type of thing, it’s down,” he told UPI. “We’re still down, and what must be kept in mind is that last year was just the beginning of a trend that has since deepened or expanded.”
Dimanche predicted that as more tourism figures are released in the coming months,