Anyone planning to travel to the US: Yay or Nay?

[Albertasaurus]

There is always this, personally I don't fly to the states so more international routes sounds great.

Me neither. Honestly with the shit exchange rate, I have been travelling to the US less for a couple years now so boycotting for me is basically continuing what I was already doing. It's a pain in the ass to get to Europe or Asia, but once you're there things are quite affordable when compared to the US.

As an aside, it will be interesting to see what effect Trump's antics will have on the economies of big tourist destinations in the US that rely heavily Canadians like Florida, Phoenix or Las Vegas. For that matter, a lot of Europeans visit places like New York and Florida. Trump is picking fights with them too so I can't imagine they're any more enamoured with him than we are.

 

[Surrealplaces]

On the bright side, if WestJet finds itself reducing flights to some US destinations, perhaps it'll open up opportunities for more international routes?

That's what I'm thinking too. International destinations are more money per flight, but might be the same over even cheaper in the long run, especially due to the sinking dollar.

For example going to Nashville is a cheaper flight than going to Tokyo, but the hotel prices aren't much different, and in places like Tokyo, Rome, Barcelona etc. you don't need to rent a car. Going out to eat in US cities isn't cheap anymore, and from what I can see might actually be more than a place like Tokyo, and from my recent experiences I can say that's it's more to eat out in the US than Rome. It used to be that American destinations were much cheaper than European or Asian destinations, but not anymore.

 

[Beltline_B]

I went to Las Vegas last year, not because I wanted to be, but because of a wedding. Geezus that place is expensive. Literally everything is expensive is more than Canadian prices and then you have the exchange on top of that.
Even without Trump, I probably wouldn’t be going to the US anytime soon but now i’ll be avoiding going there at all costs.

 

[JTron]

That's what I'm thinking too. International destinations are more money per flight, but might be the same over even cheaper in the long run, especially due to the sinking dollar.

For example going to Nashville is a cheaper flight than going to Tokyo, but the hotel prices aren't much different, and in places like Tokyo, Rome, Barcelona etc. you don't need to rent a car. Going out to eat in US cities isn't cheap anymore, and from what I can see might actually be more than a place like Tokyo, and from my recent experiences I can say that's it's more to eat out in the US than Rome. It used to be that American destinations were much cheaper than European or Asian destinations, but not anymore.

We cancelled our trip to the New York/Philadelphia this summer, and cancelled plans for Hawaii next December. Part of it is Trump, part was the low dollar, but Trump made it an easy decision.
On the flip side, it’s now helping to convince my less adventurous wife to go to another continent.

 

[Albertasaurus]

My last two trips to the US last year - Vegas and Seattle - were both hideously expensive. The prices were on par or more expensive than here for most things even without factoring the exchange rate. Comparatively even UK, France and Germany were surprisingly affordable when I was there a little over a year ago. I'm going to Japan in the summer and hotels in Tokyo are comparable to what I'd expect to pay for a Super 8 in Great Falls these days. Trump is just making it easier to continue picking travel alternatives at a time when the US isn't a great value proposition to begin with.

 

[Cowtown]

We’re all of the same mind. I went to Denver in 2023 and found it expensive back then, luckily the company was footing the bill. I won’t travel to the US until two things happen. Prices come down and Trump is gone. Regardless of prices as long as he’s president I won’t be going there. .
On a side note, I was supposed to go to the Denver in May, but convinced my boss it was too expensive. This was even before Trump’s antics. The folks from Denver are coming here instead

 

[Surrealplaces]

Decided to move this out of the Airport thread, since it's more of a general topic.

I voted no, for a couple of reasons:
- the exchange rate sucks
- I can't in good conscience travel to the US with Trump in power, and his planned tariffs, they won't be seeing me and my Canadian $$ anytime soon.

 

[CBBarnett]

I haven't updated these in a while; here's the monthly pax numbers versus a pre-covid trend projection including seasonality and linear growth:
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International has been the big success, with a lot more summer traffic than the prepandemic trend - more even travel year-round; on the other hand, domestic and transborder are still below the pre-pandemic trend. I suspect this drop is just a long-term effect of Teams, Zoom and the rest normalizing more business being done virtually. This is what it's going to be now.

Based on these recent trends, my guess for 2025 is 13.22M domestic, 3.97M transborder and 2.46M international for a total of 19.65M pax.

However, my guess is that we'll likely underachieve this target. I suspect transborder will have a hit from the nonsense down there; I've had three conversations in the past two weeks where different people have talked about reluctance to travel to the US. In principle that means domestic might benefit as people in other provinces come here for holidays; in practice economic uncertainty leads to less spending on nice things like luxury travel. Internationally, who knows -- on one hand, maybe Banff seems like a less-crazy alternative to Yellowstone; on the other hand, I suspect some international visitors are combining Canada and US travel, and might just go to the Alps or Mt Fuji instead.

Thanks for the great data and charts! Cool trends.

Regarding transborder, there’s increasing smoke - surveys all say travel intent has dropped dramatically, now even Westjet is reporting 25% drop in bookings.

That kind of drop in trans-border is massive, we will have to see how sustained it actually is in practice. But with enough smoke - surveys, anecdotes, now airlines all saying US travel is plummeting - perhaps we are witnessing an actual fire?


https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/arti...g-to-fly-to-us-since-tariff-talk-started-ceo/

 

[Patrick.1980]

Emphatic NO for me.

 

[Tarsus]

Somebody voted yes? Lol

 

[Tarsus]

I went to Las Vegas last year, not because I wanted to be, but because of a wedding. Geezus that place is expensive. Literally everything is expensive is more than Canadian prices and then you have the exchange on top of that.
Even without Trump, I probably wouldn’t be going to the US anytime soon but now i’ll be avoiding going there at all costs.

Las Vegas should be renamed ‘Lost Wages’ the place is ridiculous. I’m not talking lost wages due to gambling, I’m talking lost wages cuz it’s so freaking expensive.

 

[darwink]

Las Vegas should be renamed ‘Lost Wages’ the place is ridiculous. I’m not talking lost wages due to gambling, I’m talking lost wages cuz it’s so freaking expensive.

In 2021, 2022 went twice with $25 dollar hotel rooms, right on the strip. Sure the food and drink was expensive (not as much as Seattle) but it worked out to be quite cheap. Last year I think we were lucky to be below $250, off strip.

Was ‘good’ while it lasted. I am glad for Mexico City being much more accessible for the next few years, when the trip too short to justify an 8 hour time change.

 

[Atticus]

In 2021, 2022 went twice with $25 dollar hotel rooms, right on the strip. Sure the food and drink was expensive (not as much as Seattle) but it worked out to be quite cheap. Last year I think we were lucky to be below $250, off strip.

Those cheap prices must’ve been related to Covid’s effects.
I went in 2018 and there was nothing that cheap on the strip or even off the strip for that matter. Our room at Treasure Island was around $200 CDN iirc. But yeah even in 2018 food was expensive, we picked Vegas instead of Germany thinking it was the vastly cheaper option, but by the time the dust settled, after conversion and all, we found out Germany would have been cheaper - on a daily average if going for at least two weeks.
Whatever the costs are - less or more, I won’t be going to the U.S.

 

[darwink]

Those cheap prices must’ve been related to Covid’s effects.
I went in 2018 and there was nothing that cheap on the strip or even off the strip for that matter. Our room at Treasure Island was around $200 CDN iirc. But yeah even in 2018 food was expensive, we picked Vegas instead of Germany thinking it was the vastly cheaper option, but by the time the dust settled, after conversion and all, we found out Germany would have been cheaper - on a daily average if going for at least two weeks.
Whatever the costs are - less or more, I won’t be going to the U.S.

Status to wave resort fees at Caesars resorts was a big thing. They really clamped down on who could access status equivalents from other hotel and airline programs.

 

[YYCguy]

Unfortunately I do have to travel to the US for work on occasion and I did book an upcoming LA-SJD-LA cruise long ago, but after that is completed in early March, my voluntary US travel going forward is going to be substantially decreased or eliminated.