Keith Fowke of Winnipeg often takes his family south of the border for a holiday. But with ongoing tariff unpredictability and annexation threats coming from U.S. President Donald Trump, Fowke says he won’t step foot in the country this year.
Instead, he’s planning a family road trip, possibly to the Royal Tyrrell Museum — a.k.a. the Dinosaur Museum — in Drumheller, Alta.
“You know, going on the No. 1 highway, that’s a very Canadian thing to do. And, you know, there’s some smaller communities around Drumheller, so we can plan things out a little bit,” Fowke told CBC Radio’s Cost of Living.
“We’re going to spend our dollars in Canada where, you know, people might be having economic hard times and we want to put our dollars where it can help Canadians.”
Fowke isn’t the only one. The last few months have shown a drastic drop in Canadian travel across the border, whether for business or pleasure. And many in the domestic tourism industry — including in Fowke’s hometown — say some of the less obvious locations, including small towns, could benefit the most.
“I believe in both Canada and the U.S., when they’re thinking of travelling to Canadian cities, they quite often think of MTV: Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver,” said Tyler Walsh, director of marketing for Winnipeg’s economic development including tourism.
“And it’s cities like Winnipeg that I think have to work a little bit harder, and maybe be a little more creative, to really make an impact.”
Christine Chettiar runs a bed and breakfast in Bathurst, N.B., that can accommodate about 30 people at a time. She says she’s currently fully booked for the summer, which doesn’t usually happen until the end of August.
Canadians “are afraid to go to the U.S.,” she said bluntly. “I have some clients that … say, ‘Well, you know, we’re not going to travel to the U.S.,’ because … they hear on the news they might lock you up.”
Reports of checkpoints being set up along the U.S.-Canada border, and one Canadian’s tale of being detained for 11 days by U.S. immigration, have further fuelled travel fears.
Chettiar herself shelved what would have been a regular trip to see friends in Miami. The Trump factor, she says, is affecting where people on both sides of the border are planning to stay.
“I think he’s a lunatic,” she said. “U.S. people are very, very nice people and we have good friends there. We have family there, and so they are coming to visit us instead.”
Wayne Smith, a professor of tourism at Toronto Metropolitan University, says people are taking the change in cross-border relations to search for something a little more off the beaten track this summer.
“You can go to Toronto anytime, you can go to Vancouver anytime, but you’re not always going to go to, you know, Wawa [in northern Ontario]. And [those that do are] getting an experience that’s very different,” he said.
Several cities are calibrating their ad campaigns to take advantage.
Take Winnipeg, which describes itself as “Canada’s middle child” in a new tourism campaign. It even includes a mascot named Winnie Fred, who is shaped like the city’s boundaries, that appears on billboards.
“There’s a little of a wink and a nod and obviously a sense of humour with this whole thing that we’re very excited,” said Walsh.
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Recent tourism ads for Newfoundland and Labrador feature expected images like icebergs, but they also focus on the province’s small-town residents most likely to be taking in tourist dollars.
The plan appears to be working. Marine Atlantic, the ferry service that takes visitors to the west coast of Newfoundland, told Cost of Living it has 7,000 more bookings compared to this time last year.
Steve Crocker, the province’s minister of tourism, culture, arts and recreation, says it’s a “bucket-list destination” for many Canadians, and that since so many of them are reconsidering plans to visit the U.S., they’re finally making plans to mark it off their list.
“You are affecting really local businesses, mom-and-pop shops, businesses with, you know, two and three and four employees,” said Crocker. “That’s who you will spend a lot of your time supporting if you come to Newfoundland and Labrador.”
Moose Jaw, Sask., is also taking a cheeky tone in its tourism push this year — but it features Mayor James Murdock promoting the city to possible American tourists.
The video features Mac the Moose — a giant sculpture that at 10.36 metres is recognized as the largest moose in the world — and the city’s moniker as “Canada’s most notorious city.”
That’s mostly a reference to its underground tunnels, which have been the focus of many rumours, including one that gangsters like Al Capone used them to smuggle booze during Prohibition.
Donna Fritzke, the city’s director of tourism, says visits last year contributed $134 million to the local economy, with about $18 million coming specifically from Americans. But she’s also seeing growing interest among Canadians.
“We’re really excited about it, because from what we’ve been hearing, people do want to stay closer to home and visit, you know, their own backyard.”
Dennis Campbell, CEO of the Ambassatours Grey Line, which runs boat cruises and sightseeing tours across the Maritimes, says business has been up by around 40 per cent overall compared to last year. The biggest increase is from Canadian tourists, followed by Europeans and then Americans.
Part of that is the favourable exchange rate, due to the weak Canadian dollar right now. But in the past few weeks, he said he’s had to entertain unusual questions from Americans, although perhaps understandable given the current political climate.
“We’ve started to get the question from several of the customers saying, ‘Will we be welcome?’ And of course, the answer is, ‘Yes, of course you will,'” he said.
“As Canadians, as Maritimers, that’s who we are. And we’re just very, very friendly, hospitable people. It’s in our DNA. And so even in challenging times, it’s nice to see that people stand by their values and continue to be welcoming to our friends and visitors from everywhere.”
Keith Fowke in Winnipeg says he’s still in the early phases of planning all the stops for his summer road trip, but he knows one thing: he won’t be alone staying closer to home.
“Now is a good time to get off our butts and go see our local tourism spots,” he said.
