A theme in travel industry earnings this week has emerged: fewer Canadians are visiting the US.
There have also been signs of a top destination they're headed to instead: Mexico.
Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta said on an earnings call Tuesday that the company, whose hotels are primarily in the US, had seen a decline in Canadian visitors. Caesars Entertainment, the Nevada-based hotel and casino company, also said on its earnings call that Canadian visitation was down. Both companies said, however, that Canadians made up a small portion of their overall business.
Booking Holdings, an online travel booking company, also reported that Canada-US travel had slowed and offered some insight into where Canadian travelers are going instead. The company's brands include Booking.com, Priceline.com, and Kayak.
"In the quarter, we observed notable changes in certain travel patterns. We saw a moderation in trends for inbound travel into the US, particularly from bookers in Canada, and to a lesser extent, from bookers in Europe," the company's chief financial officer, Ewout Lucien Steenbergen, said on Tuesday's earnings call. "However, we also saw an improvement in trends in other travel corridors, for example, from Canada to Mexico, resulting in stable growth overall."
Steenbergen added that the company was "agnostic where they are traveling because usually, they're spending the same amount just at another destination."
The company earnings were the latest sign that Canadians are avoiding US travel in response to President Donald Trump's trade war and his comments about making Canada the 51st state. There have also been other indications from travel companies that Canadians are opting to visit Mexico over the US.
Longwoods International, a market research consultancy specializing in the travel tourism industry, found in a survey published Tuesday that Mexico was one of the top destinations Canadians said they'd choose over the US. The survey, conducted earlier this month, included 1,000 Canadian adults who had taken a trip in the past three years and planned to take one in the next two years.
In the survey, 36% of respondents said they'd planned to travel to the US in the next 12 months but decided to cancel their plans, while 60% said US government policy, trade practices, or political statements had made them less likely to visit the US in the next year.
Of those who said US government policies were affecting their travel plans, 40% said they'd take a domestic trip instead, while 27% said they'd travel to a different international destination. The most popular international destinations included Mexico, Portugal, Spain, France, and the Caribbean.
In March, WestJet Airlines also said Canadian travelers were opting for Central America over the US.
"There's clearly been a reaction," Alex Cruz, a vice chairman of WestJet, said on CNBC about how Trump's trade war had affected Canadians visiting the US. "What we are seeing, though, is people changing their destinations. It's no longer Phoenix or Florida. It's the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Mexico."
Christian Wolters, the Canada president of tour organizer Intrepid Travel, also told NBC News last month that Canadian customers were avoiding the US and traveling domestically or to places such as Mexico and Costa Rica.
The US Travel Association has said that a 10% reduction in visitors from Canada, the top source of international travelers to the US, could mean a loss of $2.1 billion in spending and 14,000 jobs.
Do you have a story to share about Canada-US travel? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@bjinnox.com.
