In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods, are Canadian travellers deciding to take their money elsewhere from the United States?
Tourism Prince George CEO Colin Carson said they’re seeing that shift happen.
“The tariffs are a factor, but also the Canadian dollar weakening a little bit lately is impact that travel, and people are cancelling some of their trips to the states,” Carson said.
“It’s an interesting time, and definitely we want to encourage those Canadian people to stick in Canada and travel around Canada this summer if they can.”
Anecdotally, Carson noted they’ve heard that Canadians are looking to Canada for their trips.
“We probably don’t have any data on that, but anecdotally for sure,” he explained.
“Prince George was involved in the Vancouver Outdoor Adventure Show this past weekend, it’s basically just a trade show trying to encourage travel and people that are looking for ideas for trips, that’s definitely something we heard anecdotally from a lot of people, is they were looking for trips within Canada as they’re walking around that tradeshow floor, that’s what they’re prioritizing this year.”
Carson added they’ve been looking at flight tracking data, and while flights from Canada to the US are decreasing, there hasn’t been a decrease the other way.
“It’s appearing that American visitors are still coming and booking trips to Canada to visit,” he said.
“I think that for us, we are seeing this as still an opportunity to make sure that we’re welcoming to those types of visitors who are coming to Canada and choosing to support our economy.”
Carson added they’re not really changing from a marketing standpoint.
“The things that people love coming to us for is that outdoor recreation, and that’s something that we’re going to continue to promote pretty heavily, and try to encourage those visitors that are considering trips this summer to stay in Prince George or to visit Prince George instead of where other trip options may be,” he said.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s positioning us as an alternative to the United States but it’s trying to just attract that same audience that we always do.”
In terms of that audience, Carson said that includes a lot of ‘close by, domestic travel.’
“It’s those BC, Alberta residents that are most likely coming to Prince George on rubber tires, driving here,” he said.
“That being said we do have some marketing campaigns that are going to international markets like Washington state, as well as overseas and the UK and Germany.”
Carson said Tourism PG will continue to focus on markets that are looking for what Prince George offers.
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