Canadians are nervous these days about visiting their southern neighbour. Tariff wars. Attacks on trans rights. The end to issuing and perhaps recognizing X passports. Federal policies to end initiatives to promote diversity, equality and inclusion—which have often helped advanced queer people—and federal pressure on the private sector to do the same. The increasing uncertainty about what’s happening politically on the other side of the border and, indeed, what’s happening at the border itself. A new rule requiring Canadians who plan to stay in the U.S. for more than 30 days to register ahead of time doesn’t seem especially welcoming.
Pink Ticket Travel reached out to 13 Canadian LGBTQ2S+ and LGBTQ2S+-friendly travel agents to ask them what they’re telling their Canadian clients now about travel to the United States. Only two agreed to be interviewed. Neither were bullish on visiting the U.S. for the foreseeable future.
“We’re telling travellers to try to find another destination, an alternate destination,” says Robert Townshend, founder, president and travel consultant at Toronto-based Total Advantage Travels & Tours. “Our overall bookings to the U.S., when I checked last, were down 40 percent. I’m sure it’s more than 40 percent now. I think anybody who is part of the LGBT community doesn’t want to support this administration. I’ve had several clients who have gone as far as to lose their deposits on bookings to the U.S. they made when Biden was still in power.”
Townshend says people have a few motives for avoiding the U.S. For some, it’s a lack of a feeling of safety. For others, they’re avoiding the U.S. to make a political statement about many of the decisions being made by President Donald Trump.
“A lot of my clients don’t want to support any American companies. I just had a family call me and say that they want to go to Disneyland but don’t want to support the U.S. So they want to go to Disneyland in Paris, but there’s the issue that it’s still an American company,” says Townshend.
Dean Nelson, who sells curated LGBTQ+ travel experiences at the Vancouver-based company Personal Travel Management, says it depends where the traveller is going and what they want to do.
“I will ask them, ‘What about the States do you want to experience? Is there another destination that might be safer for you to go to?’” says Nelson. “If they’re like, ‘We just want to go to Miami to jump on a cruise ship,’ I’ll say that’s fine. But if they’re nonbinary and they have an X gender marker on their passport, that makes it much more complicated. People need to proceed with extra caution.”
Nelson is worried that even in more progressive states and regions, the Trump presidency may have emboldened those who don’t like LGBTQ2S+ people.
“It’s terrible to think that an LGBTQ2S+ event or gathering could be targeted by unsavoury people,” he says. “Everything is so unpredictable right now. You just don’t know how the federal government and their agencies are going to respond. If you have an issue that comes up and you go to the authorities, will you, as a queer person, have their support? Especially if you’re a Latino or a person of colour who is queer, you have way more things against you now. And I think that’s what’s scary.”
Nelson says the places that have been safe continue to be safe–there are many welcoming states, cities and towns in the United States. But there is still the question of Trump’s tariffs, which could make travel more expensive as the cost of products goes up.
“I think the U.S. is going to be the biggest loser out of this because the Europeans, the Canadians, the Australians, the Kiwis are all realizing that there are other destinations for us to travel to. Mexico’s up, Fiji is up, Europe is up. Thailand has really shot up as well because we now have nonstop flights out of Vancouver to Bangkok. The Philippines is also going up now that Air Canada is flying to Manila.”
Even for U.S. destinations that have long been friendly, and who oppose Trump’s policies, Townshend says all the uncertainty about what will happen next is a big disincentive for U.S. travel. “It’s such a big question mark. Why would you want to invest your hard-earned travel dollars in something that’s not guaranteed?”
