Yes, Canadians will be home for the holidays — but which home?
Their principal residences north of the U.S. border? Or the condos, second homes and favorite hotels they’ve traditionally visited in the warmer climes of Southeast Florida?
All around the region, those questions are prevalent in the minds of hoteliers, tourism promoters and other travel industry professionals who have seen sharp declines in visits this year from Canadians, who annually constitute the state’s largest block of international visitors during the winter travel season. Many of the visitors say they are tired of hearing their country characterized as the “51st state” by President Donald Trump. Others are offended by more stringent scrutiny when crossing over the border and are opting for Mexico. They also complain about higher travel and health insurance costs, as well as the tariff wars that have helped raise prices.
Trump has averred that Canadian sentiment will change once a new trade deal is worked out.
Over the years, Canadians have come in numbers that far and away outstrip any other country of origin among international tourists visiting Florida, both U.S. and Canadian officials say.
“We stay longer and we spend more because many people own second homes here,” said Sylvia Cesaratto, the Canadian consul general based in Miami.
Cesaratto, who took over her post in 2022, said that in 2024, the number of Americans traveling into Canada was 14 million, while the number of Canadians heading south into the U.S. was 20 million.
Last year, 3.3 million Canadians came to Florida, which she called “the top destination in the U.S. for Canadians by a wide margin.”
But between January and September in 2025, the number of Canadians visiting the U.S. was down 21%. And sentiment among Canadians toward planning trips to the U.S. in the next 12 months has also shown a steady decline.
Hoteliers report a ripple effect on the restaurants, retail operations and other local businesses that make money from the visitors.
At the Atlantic Hotel & Spa across State Road A1A from Fort Lauderdale Beach, Amy Faulkner, the director of sales and marketing, has been scrambling to find replacement visitors for Canadians who decided to stay home.
“We are down 4.9% for the first six months, since January 2025,” she said in an interview at the condo-hotel hotel, where owners can rent their units to short- to intermediate-term visitors. Many of the owners — and renters — are Canadians.
“This hotel is set up to be a liveable situation for Canadians who can stay up to six months,” Faulkner said. “Their not coming is not like I’m losing two or three nights. I’m losing three months. My spa is losing money. My restaurant is losing money. My valet is losing money.”
Other hotels catering to Canadians face similar impacts, she said, as do restaurants, transportation providers and attractions such as museums.
“It’s not just me,” she said. “It’s affecting all of us. We need to make up for this loss of Canadian business. We miss them. We feel the pain. We want them back.”
She said she is working on an offer to lure them back.
In Hollywood, Richard Clevet, owner and proprietor of multiple 20- to 30-room hotels and motels in the city since he arrived in South Florida from Quebec several decades ago, said he wishes the political rhetoric over tariffs, border crossings and the “51st state” would evaporate.
“It was difficult last spring,” he said. “March was bad. April was bad.”
“It started very slow in November,” Clavet added. “We had a few come in. The first snowstorm generated a lot of phone calls. A lot of them are going to hit the road this Friday night as soon as school and offices are closed.”
He was expecting 30 to 35 people with children over the weekend. “You’ll see those blue and white tags headed this way for a two-week stay,” he said.
In addition, 2026 winter bookings for Richard’s Motel, Richard’s Hotel and Richard’s Pet Friendly, among others, appear to be looking up.
“We do have good reservations coming this winter,” he said. “This coming weekend, a lot of reservations are coming in. Hopefully it’s going to bounce back and they’ll forget about the tariff issues.”
Alternate strategies
At the direction of her homeowners association, Faulkner, the Atlantic resort’s sales and marketing executive, said she ended up looking southward — to Brazil. In late September, she joined a Visit Lauderdale mission to Sao Paolo to meet with travel agents and tour operatives there.
The result for the Atlantic: 10 bookings.
Milton Segarra, president and CEO of Discover the Palm Beaches, the tourism marketing agency for Palm Beach County, said he journeyed north to Canada to pitch the county to the Canadian travel agents.
The county, which he said has seen a 4.6% decline in Canadian visits in 2025, is expected to be among those that have the lowest drop among tourist destinations as a result of the effort.
“The period that is pretty much ‘high season’ for us is November to April,” he said. “That’s where you see the bulk of Canadians visiting the Palm Beaches.”
“We did several sales and marketing and public relations events including Canada,” he said. “That paid off.”
Airlines such as Air Canada and Porter Airlines “kept the flights over the season. Right now Canadians have great access to the Palm Beaches from Montreal and Toronto.”
Earlier this month, Porter added seasonal flights at Palm Beach International, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International and Orlando International airports.
Overall, international visits are expected to grow by 10%, with many tourists arriving from the United Kingdom, Germany and Brazil, Segarra said.
“Even though we saw that decline from Canadians, we saw an increase from other international destinations,” Segarra added.
Hope springs eternal
Although 2025 figures for Canadian airline passenger traffic generated by Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport showed year-over-year declines between April and September, the pace of the decrease appears to be easing.
“The most recent data point in October shows the September [and third quarter] decline to be cut in half,” said Ted Botimer, vice president of research, strategy and revenue management at Visit Lauderdale. The agency says 1.1 million Canadians visit the Greater Fort Lauderdale area annually.
“While it is not prudent to extrapolate off a single data point, October performance gives hope that the reduction of Canadian travel will be significantly less as we enter the peak season. The rhetoric has calmed between Washington and Ottawa of late, but the customer sentiment [as surveyed by X Border Canada] remains low. But the sentiment does not reflect the current actions of traveling Canadians — thank goodness!”
He added that while there will be a small year-over-year performance decline in the first quarter of next year, “Greater Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood should continue to outperform the rest of the U.S. during the peak, just as in 2025.”
Similar sentiment seems to apply among developers who are building residential projects in cities where Canadians typically have been steady residential real estate buyers over the years, even though recent analyses show fewer are looking to buy.
According to Cesaretto, the consul general, “we are also the top foreign buyers of residential real estate.”
“That’s not only in Florida but all of the U.S., as well,” she said. “In Florida we believe in 2024 there was about $2.5 billion in purchases by Canadians. We typically buy single-family homes or condos in small coastal communities. Those communities will feel the absence of Canadians this year.”
But Ari Garcia, whose Mondrian Hallandale Beach Residences, a 27-story luxury high-rise project, is showing units to would-be buyers, and Canadians are among them.
“Canadian buyers will continue to come because South Florida to them isn’t just a vacation destination,” he said. “It’s where their family lives now and it’s where they plan to live in their retirement for their second homes. South Florida is still the most convenient resort or tropical destination for Canadians.”
“I don’t see traffic from Canada coming to a halt or slowing down,” he added, noting that “Hallandale has a major snowbird population.”
Ultimately, Cesaretto believes the U.S. and Canada will work their way through the political tensions.
“We’ll get past this,” she said. “Writ large, Canadians love Florida. Canadians are welcomed by Americans and vice versa. Americans love to see that Canadians at their condo buildings are back.”
And this past Friday, Richard Clevet was gearing up for an early evening outdoor gathering of French Canadians at Richard’s Motel — complete with free hot dogs and a 7-foot snowman — to welcome newly arrived guests.