U.S. travel officials are in a panic over the continued decline in  inbound tourists numbers to the states, which dropped as much as 15 per cent in 2017.
Canada, though, is one of the big benefactors of the U.S. slump. Global arrivals in Canada are up sharply, over 10 per cent, according to statistics released in late 2017. Meanwhile, Canadian traffic to the U.S. is down as much as 8 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.
Canada is the largest travel market to the U.S. but ironically Brand USA, which is responsible for promoting U.S. tourism abroad, fired its Canadian-based representative late last year and hired a New Zealand-based public relations company to represent them in Canada. Huh!?
U.S. Travel, the official American tourism watchdog, is so concerned they’ve asked for helped from the Trump administration, which, ironically, because of the president’s policies, is the main reason foreign tourists are avoiding the U.S.
So U.S. Travel late last week launched the “Visit U.S. Coalition”, a multi-industry effort of trade groups representing thousands of businesses and millions of American jobs to try and solve the problem. Reports say as much as $2.5 billion (U.S.) in tourism has been lost since Trump took office and thousands of U.S. tourism jobs cut because of the “Trump Slump.”
A report released last week by U.S. Travel says the U.S. share of global travel volume is declining while the rest of the world is growing.
Canada welcomed 190,000 travellers from Asia alone in 2017, up 14 per cent over 2016, and with China recognizing Canada as its favoured destination in 2018, arrivals from there are expected to grow even higher.
Travel from Mexico to Canada increased by 75 per cent in 2017, according to StatsCan. Tourism from Mexico into the U.S., on the other hand, dropped as much as 80 per cent in 2017, and that has southern border states like Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas very concerned.
Florida is also reporting a dramatic drop in tourism arrivals from Canada and that has prompted companies like Walt Disney World in Orlando to offer 20 per cent discounts on tickets to Canadians.
“The bottom line is we're falling behind global heavyweights like France, Germany and China,” says U.S. Travel.
“It's clear we're at a crossroads, and what comes next will help tell the tale of American competitiveness in the years ahead,” a U.S. Travel official, who asked not to be named, told me yesterday.