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

George Daniels doesn’t expect the 25 per cent discount he’s offering Canadians to entice many visitors back to the bed and breakfast he runs in Upstate New York this summer.

Canadians ordinarily make up 15 to 20 per cent of guests at the Keene Valley Lodge in the Adirondack High Peaks. Only two have booked this year though, said Daniels, who has refunded cancellation requests from others who are avoiding U.S. travel due to Donald Trump’s tariff and annexation threats.

Daniels understands their reticence. 

“I support the boycott, even though it’s hurting us financially,” he said, describing his inn’s discount as a symbolic gesture. “I really just wanted to get word out that we’re not supporting these policies.” 

From upscale lodges to a bike tour company offering “summer camp for people who love bikes,” tourism operators in Upstate New York are offering “northern neighbor” discounts, hoping to win back Canadians boycotting U.S. travel due to Trump’s trade war.

These deals were highlighted in an email last week from the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) in Lake Placid asking their “dear friends in Canada” to return. 

“We know now is not the right time to ask you to come, but when you are ready to come back down, we’re excited to welcome you back,” said ROOST president Dan Kelleher. 

More than retaliatory countertariffs, an informal Canadian visitor boycott is hurting American border communities whose economies rely in part on Canadian visitors and cross-border supply chains.

Vehicle traffic across the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge between Ontario and New York dropped 31 per cent in April compared to the same period last year, the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority (OBPA) announced recently. 

“We know Canadians are choosing not to cross, and we understand why,” the OBPA said in a statement, noting that “when Canadians stay home, we feel it immediately.”

‘Intensified hospitality campaign’

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

The chamber’s president Garry Douglas attributes part of the decline to a weak loonie and part to anger at Trump. 

In response, the chamber has launched an “intensified hospitality campaign” aimed at convincing Canadians not to punish border communities for the rhetoric coming out of Washington, D.C.

“We’re going to do everything we can as a region to help with the healing once we hopefully get past the trade war,” Douglas said, citing a survey commissioned by the chamber indicating that 97 per cent of local businesses were concerned by tariffs. 

As part of its campaign, the chamber recently aired a TV ad in Canada seeking to distinguish border communities from Trump country.

“I was going to the U.S. … but now I’m going to Plattsburgh and the Adirondack Coast,” a woman with a Québécois accent says in the tourism ad.

‘You’re welcome here’

Plattsburgh, N.Y., is close enough to the Canadian border that locals jokingly refer to the city as Montreal’s southern suburbs. 

Michael Cashman, Plattsburgh’s town supervisor, said while uncertainty around tariffs has caused some businesses to pause expansion plans, his biggest immediate worry is a decline in Canadian visitors. 

“I’m most concerned about our marinas, our campgrounds, our hotels, our small restaurants,” he said.

Cashman said he and other local figures have been communicating their discontent to state leaders and the administration in Washington.

“We continue to provide a full-throated level of support that these tariffs are nonsensical and that they are an attack on our friends and neighbours,” he said.

Cashman sought to distance his community from the actions of the current U.S. administration and appealed directly to Canadians: “We will do everything that we can to continue to strengthen our friendships and partnerships.”

Doug Haney, who runs Bike Adirondack based in Saranac Lake, N.Y., said he understands why Canadians are boycotting U.S. travel. 

“Honestly, if I was a Canadian citizen I would probably feel the same way,” he said. 

This is why his company is offering Canadians 15 per cent off several of its bike tours this summer, he said. 

“We as business owners and as citizens want to just say, ‘Hey, you’re welcome here and we genuinely care about our Canadian neighbours to the north.'”