Cell Data Shows Trump Trade Policy Impact on Canadian Tourism

The economic effects of President Donald Trump’s disruptive approach to foreign policy are coming into sharper focus with a year’s worth of data.

As expected, a range of numbers like border crossings and hotel bookings show how Trump’s trade war has killed off a large segment of Canadian tourism.

But new analysis from the University of Toronto’s School of Cities now shows that other areas of the economy have taken a major hit as well.

Using cell phone data, researchers Karen Chapple, Yihoi Jung, and Jeff Allen documented an average year-over-year decline in Canadian visits to US cities of approximately 42%. That’s a much larger hit than the 25% drop previously estimated based on border crossing data.

“The top 20 cities were a number of big metros that aren’t exactly known as, you know, big tourist areas,” Chapple told Business Insider.

While the drop-offs in Las Vegas and Orlando could reasonably be attributed to less tourism, major commercial hubs like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, and Houston also saw significant declines. The researchers attribute the change to fewer tech and finance employees making work trips.

“I fly to San Francisco all the time,” Chapple said. “It’s a tech flight to San Francisco — that’s who’s with me on the flight.”

Chapple said her team was particularly surprised by mid-sized cities like Grand Rapids and Flint, Michigan, which have robust automotive industry relationships that are increasingly complicated by the White House’s changing tariff policy.

“High-tech and financial centres like San Francisco and Houston appear to be experiencing reductions not only in tourists but also in business-related travel, reflecting changing travel preferences due to broader economic uncertainties on both sides of the border,” the researchers wrote. “As another example, Grand Rapids, which has close ties to the automotive industry in Ontario, has experienced the second largest drop in visitation, likely due to the tariffs.”

The findings underscore how the ties between Canada and the US are under strain: Of the 267 cities included in the analysis, only three saw increased Canadian visits last year compared to the year before.

It took about three years for Canadian visits to largely recover the plunge that followed the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s still too early to tell how long this latest dip will last.