Upstate N.Y. tourism operators offering discounts to win back Canadians

Campbell MacDiarmid · CBC News

· Posted: May 10, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 21 minutes ago

George Daniels doesn't expect the 25 per cent discount he's offering Canadians to entice galore visitors backmost to the furniture and meal helium runs successful Upstate New York this summer.

Canadians ordinarily marque up 15 to 20 per cent of guests astatine the Keene Valley Lodge successful the Adirondack High Peaks. Only 2 person booked this twelvemonth though, said Daniels, who has refunded cancellation requests from others who are avoiding U.S. question owed to Donald Trump's tariff and annexation threats.

Daniels understands their reticence. 

"I enactment the boycott, adjacent though it's hurting america financially," helium said, describing his inn's discount arsenic a symbolic gesture. "I truly conscionable wanted to get connection retired that we're not supporting these policies." 

From upscale lodges to a motorcycle circuit institution offering "summer campy for radical who emotion bikes," tourism operators successful Upstate New York are offering "northern neighbour" discounts, hoping to triumph backmost Canadians boycotting U.S. question owed to Trump's commercialized war.

These deals were highlighted successful an email past week from the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) successful Lake Placid asking their "dear friends successful Canada" to return. 

"We cognize present is not the close clip to inquire you to come, but erstwhile you are acceptable to travel backmost down, we're excited to invited you back," said ROOST president Dan Kelleher. 

More than retaliatory countertariffs, an informal Canadian visitant boycott is hurting American borderline communities whose economies trust successful portion connected Canadian visitors and cross-border proviso chains.

Vehicle postulation crossed the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge betwixt Ontario and New York dropped 31 per cent successful April compared to the aforesaid play past year, the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority (OBPA) announced recently. 

"We cognize Canadians are choosing not to cross, and we recognize why," the OBPA said successful a statement, noting that "when Canadians enactment home, we consciousness it immediately."

'Intensified hospitality campaign'

Car crossings astatine the Champlain-St. Bernard de Lacolle Border Crossing from Quebec into New York were besides down 31 per cent successful March compared to a twelvemonth earlier, according to the North Country Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber's president Garry Douglas attributes portion of the diminution to a anemic loonie and portion to choler astatine Trump. 

In response, the enclosure has launched an "intensified hospitality campaign" aimed astatine convincing Canadians not to punish borderline communities for the rhetoric coming retired of Washington, D.C.

"We're going to bash everything we tin arsenic a portion to assistance with the healing erstwhile we hopefully get past the commercialized war," Douglas said, citing a survey commissioned by the enclosure indicating that 97 per cent of section businesses were acrophobic by tariffs. 

As portion of its campaign, the enclosure precocious aired a TV advertisement successful Canada seeking to separate borderline communities from Trump country.

"I was going to the U.S. … but present I'm going to Plattsburgh and the Adirondack Coast," a pistillate with a Québécois accent says successful the tourism ad.

'You're invited here'

Plattsburgh, N.Y., is adjacent capable to the Canadian borderline that locals jokingly notation to the metropolis arsenic Montreal's confederate suburbs. 

Michael Cashman, Plattsburgh's municipality supervisor, said while uncertainty astir tariffs has caused immoderate businesses to intermission enlargement plans, his biggest contiguous interest is simply a diminution successful Canadian visitors. 

"I'm astir acrophobic astir our marinas, our campgrounds, our hotels, our tiny restaurants," helium said.

Cashman said helium and different section figures person been communicating their discontent to authorities leaders and the medication successful Washington.

"We proceed to supply a full-throated level of enactment that these tariffs are nonsensical and that they are an onslaught connected our friends and neighbours," helium said.

Cashman sought to region his assemblage from the actions of the existent U.S. medication and appealed straight to Canadians: "We volition bash everything that we tin to proceed to fortify our friendships and partnerships."

Doug Haney, who runs Bike Adirondack based successful Saranac Lake, N.Y., said helium understands wherefore Canadians are boycotting U.S. travel. 

"Honestly, if I was a Canadian national I would astir apt consciousness the aforesaid way," helium said. 

This is wherefore his institution is offering Canadians 15 per cent disconnected respective of its motorcycle tours this summer, helium said. 

"We arsenic concern owners and arsenic citizens privation to conscionable say, 'Hey, you're invited present and we genuinely attraction astir our Canadian neighbours to the north.'"