Canadian snowbirds still avoid Florida, state’s tourist hotspots

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, they will continue to show huge declines in Canadian tourist visits across the United States when compared to 2024.

“You really see how much of a gap there still is when you look back to two years ago,” he said, dubbing the phenomenon a “Trump slump” in which international tourism fell by 5.4% in the United States last year even while jumping by 4% around the rest of the world.

While cautioning that he “has no crystal ball,” Dimanche predicted last year’s trend, with its month-after-month declines, will continue into this year.

“It’s not going to stop because it’s 2026,” he said, noting that it’s not only Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty and his tariff policies, but also the strong U.S. dollar, aggressive immigration enforcement activities, perceived safety issues and the potential for social media screening at the border that are combining to “make people are feel very uncomfortable about going to the U.S.”

Gulf Coast tourism hard-hit

The effects of the Canadian tourism slowdown appear to be hitting Florida’s Gulf Coast the hardest, especially in the southwestern part of state in and around Lee and Collier counties, where snowbirds from north of the border have long-established ties with vacation rentals and homes and condos they own.

The issue remains a sensitive and politically fraught one in the region, and questions posed by UPI to local tourism officials and real estate agents who have Canadian customers, as well as to Canadian snowbird organizations, were met with “no comment” or were not responded to.

However, there is statistical and anecdotal evidence to suggest that southwestern Florida is feeling a keen economic impact during this winter tourism season.

Media interviews and online comments by Canadian travelers indicate the backlash to Trump’s policies is continuing unabated, with traffic at tourism-dependent Gulf Coast businesses down and Canadian homeowners rushing to sell their vacation properties.

Among the firsthand evidence of the plight faced by Gulf Coast businesses comes from Collier County, which includes such favorite Canadian tourism destinations as Naples and Marco Island. Tourism is the county’s largest industry, supporting nearly 30,000 jobs and generating more than $2.8 billion in direct economic impact annually.

County officials reported last month that November’s overall international tourism traffic fell by 10.8% compared with the year-earlier figure, including a 14.8% decline in Canadian visitors, who numbered just 12,000. Their share of the county’s overall tourism pie dropped from 5.9% from 6.7%.

Those numbers come on top of a “choppy” and “soft” local tourism economy since 2024, due not only to the decline in visits from Canada, but also broader economic trends such as stubborn inflation and lack of consumer confidence.

Sharon Lockwood, area general manager of the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort, told the Collier County Board of Commissioners in September the slowdown is making a dent in the industry.

“I can tell you firsthand, I have lost some significant group business from Canada over the last two years, year and a-half, but most importantly in 2025 for future business,” she said. “So I’m going to be out looking for new business.”

The hotelier said she couldn’t justify hiring new workers.

“I don’t have enough hours for the individuals that I’m currently employing,” Lockwood said, adding, “Restaurants [on Marco Island] are closing down one or two days a week because they cannot afford the payroll to stay open full-time. It has not been that way since I’ve been down here.”

Meanwhile, there is unmistakable evidence that significant numbers of Canadian homeowners in Florida and elsewhere in the United States are seeking to put their homes on the market as they look to exit what they feel has become politically hostile territory.

More than half (54%) of Canadians who currently own residential property in the United States said last summer they were planning to sell within the next year, with most of them (62%) citing the actions of the Trump administration as the main reason, according to a survey conducted by real estate firm Royal LePage.

“Places like Florida, Arizona and California stand to lose millions in economic activity each year — and thousands of neighbors — if Canadian owners pull their capital from U.S. housing markets,” Royal LePage president and CEO Phil Soper said in a release.

Along the Gulf Coast, those Canadians are selling into a oversaturated market that is expected to take hard price hits during 2026, with likely declines of 10.2% in Cape Coral, 8.9% in North Port and 3.6% in Tampa, according to projections from Realtor.com.

In April, Budge Huskey, CEO of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty in Naples, Fla., called Canadians “integral to our housing market, especially along the Gulf Coast, contributing to community vibrancy, tourism, and property tax revenue,” noting in an opinion piece published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that they account for 11% of all foreign homebuyers in the United States, with Florida consistently ranked as their top destination.

“Yet, recent trade tensions have chipped away at that relationship,” he wrote. “Beyond the economic impact, rhetoric and policy decisions perceived as antagonistic have left many Canadians feeling unwelcome.

“In neighborhoods across our markets, including likely your own, it’s not uncommon to see ‘for sale’ signs on properties owned by Canadians who have decided they’ve had enough.”

Huskey implored all Floridians “to remind our northern neighbors just how much they are respected and appreciated.”

Dimanche said the trend toward Canadians selling their Florida homes is not only related to Trump, but also to economic concerns.

“One of the factors is that the Canadian dollar is still weak compared to the U.S. dollar, even though the U.S. dollar has gone down slightly the past couple of weeks,” he said.
“The Canadian dollar is very low, so that makes things a lot more expensive for the Canadians.

“The second thing is the price of home insurance has gone up and keeps going up in Florida,” he added. “This is related to global warming, which triggers hurricanes and rising sea levels. A lot of people may not be concerned about climate change in the U.S., but the insurers are paying attention to this and they make you pay for it.”

Politics, hostility determining factors

Some Canadian snowbirds are telling reporters and posting online that they are looking to move on from Florida due to politics and being made to feel unwelcome.

The Canadian Snowbird Association, a nonprofit group advocating for the interests of Canadians who live part of the year in the United States, declined to comment to UPI on how their members are viewing the political and economic tensions as the winter season continues.

But one member who posted about it in the organization’s “Bird Talk” forum in December summed up the feelings of many others who have made comments on social media.

“We believe in democracy and are leery of the current situation as snowbirds to Florida,” they wrote. “We are seriously considering not going south this winter. As we own a home there, we have also thought of selling. We are very sad as in the past 12 years, we have loved our winters south.

“Almost all our neighbors, family and friends have mentioned to us that we should not go; they won’t be going or visiting us. If we didn’t own, we absolutely would not go. And are close to being positive in not going even though we own a home there. We feel we must take a stand for democracy!”

The forum moderator responded that “hundreds of thousands of Canadians are going south for the winter. We suspect that many of them are doing it quietly,” while blaming the media “for negative stories and gets lots of attention when they amplify the rhetoric.

“Do what is right for you, your family and your conscience. Enjoy your winter and travel well!”

One Canadian couple, Gwen and Paul Edmond of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, told CTV News last month they are selling their home at a seniors’ complex in Largo, Fla., after spending five months a year in Florida since 2011.

“We are not happy with the change in government, as many aren’t. We will just leave it at that, I guess. It feels very unsettled there,” Gwen Edmond said.

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