New Brunswick tourism feels the love from Canadians boycotting the U.S.

Allyson McCormack · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 22, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

Chris and Graziella Aerni person been welcoming guests to New Brunswick's Rossmount Inn for 24 years. 

Their 18-room edifice successful Saint Andrews offers good eating wherever guests often reserve their spots months in advance. And this year, astatine a clip of increasing friction with the United States, those bookings person been pouring in.  

Aerni, a Swiss-born chef, said  demand is already looking "very beardown for the summer."

"From what I tin see, unless thing very, precise drastic happens, it looks similar New Brunswick could person a large summertime season."

The accrued bookings travel astatine a clip erstwhile galore Canadians are vowing to walk their question dollars astatine location arsenic a tariff warfare with the United States heats up.

Nearly 500,000 less travellers crossed the onshore borderline from Canada into the U.S. successful February compared to the aforesaid period past year, according to information from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

If that continues into the engaged tourism season, it could crook into a hospitality operator's dream.

WATCH | N.B. circuit operators propulsion section lobster and beaches to tourists avoiding U.S.:

Joanne Bérubé-Gagné, elder enforcement advisor at the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick, was successful Montreal for an RV amusement recently, with astir 30,000 radical successful attendance, and she said the feedback was clear. 

"Everybody that came to our booth said, 'We're going east, we're going to New Brunswick, we privation to sojourn you this year,'" she said. 

"The connection astir was, 'We cancelled our abrogation to the U.S. and we're going to enactment successful Canada for a mates of years.'"

Accommodations are usually the archetypal happening radical publication erstwhile they commencement readying their vacations, and this year it's happening earlier than ever, Bérubé-Gagné said.

"We already person immoderate campgrounds telling america that they volition beryllium afloat earlier they adjacent open. Usually that starts successful April and May, but we've been getting calls since February.

"People are readying up and a batch of radical are telling america the aforesaid happening — they're not going to the U.S. They cancelled their abrogation to Old Orchard [Beach] and New Hampshire."

Suzanne Robichaud said she is seeing that interaction first-hand as one of the owners of South Cove Camping and Golf successful Shediac, a household concern for much than 50 years.

She said they mostly spot a batch of returning guests from Quebec and Ontario, but conscionable lately there person been caller inquiries. 

"This week I've had a fewer calls. People ... were changing their plans, not going to Maine, and they're looking to spot what activities [there are] successful Shediac, erstwhile was a bully clip to come. And they ended up booking for 2 weeks.

"So that's a strong, beardown connection that we've been proceeding present successful this area," she said.

Just down the road, Camille Piccinin has been taking summertime bookings for Camping Parasol since December, and said "so acold it's highly good."

She said galore of her 100 campsites are already booked for July and August, leaving small flexibility for late-comers.

'We're a bargain'

Chef Aerni said on with "Canadians not wanting to spell to the States connected principle," the caller plunge successful the loonie is besides making New Brunswick charismatic for tourists from some countries.  

"We're a bargain astatine this point," helium said. "Whenever the dollar dips into the 60s, from my experience, is erstwhile Quebecers halt crossing the borders and looking much to marque reservations … successful areas wherever the dollar goes further."

Bérubé-Gagné agrees the debased Canadian dollar does play a role, but for astir people, she thinks it comes down to principle. 

"Mainly the crushed they're telling america is not adjacent astir the money. The archetypal happening that comes retired is the mode we've been treated by the U.S.A.," she said.

"People are inactive disquieted astir that and are inactive a small spot reluctant to spell into the U.S. It's a sentiment that they're not invited anymore. So I deliberation that's a large portion of it."

Americans ever welcome

Bérubé-Gagné said tourism operators present volition proceed to invited U.S. visitors arsenic they ever person and "make definite that they get the champion acquisition and that they bask their stay."

She said "politics shouldn't beryllium a treatment connected abrogation anyway."

"We're known for bully service, we're known for affable service. And I deliberation we request to widen that. It's not everybody that thinks similar the president."

"They are arsenic frightened arsenic anybody," she said. "And I deliberation we request to … hole to invited them. And I deliberation [that's] the champion mode to easiness those tensions."