The Current - Some Canadian snowbirds ditch US holiday plans

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Some Canadians are changing their travel plans and heading to international destinations outside of the United States. We speak with two Canadian snowbirds, one who decided to travel to Mexico, rather than make their annual trip to Texas. While another returned to their Florida home, but not without some hesitation, only to find fewer Canadians around. And we hear from Wayne Smith, the Director of the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research on the latest numbers,  what's driving them, and what that means for local economies.

Okay, so there's this new play about the Rogers family and their battle for control over the gigantic telecom empire, and I cannot stop thinking about it. I'm Alameen Abdul-Mahmoud. I host a pop culture show called Commotion. This week, we're talking about Rogers v. Rogers, and on the show, we'll get into what this corporate story actually tells us about our national mythology and why Canadian theater audiences are craving more and more homegrown stories. Find and follow Commotion on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. For many Canadians, winter comes with a ritual, heads south to escape the freezing temperatures. But Donald Trump's tariffs, threats of taking over Canada, and tightened immigration rules have made some people rethink their travel plans this year. The Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is one of them.

It's going to be the first time I'm not going to Florida. But I talk to so many people, don't let this guy, Trump, determine and ruin your. life and everything. That's my personal choice. That personal choice of where Canadians are spending their travel dollars is turning up in numbers from Statistics Canada, with the second quarter of this year showing a more than 21% drop in Canadians visiting the U.S. compared to the same time last year. Charlie Bert and his wife have vacationed in Texas for more than a decade, but they've now decided to do something very different. Charlie is in Winnipeg this morning. Charlie, good morning. Good morning. I looked at the forecast when I woke up and it said it was minus 21 in

Winnipeg this morning. Yes. Texas is a lot warmer. Why are you not going back there this year? Well, for the primary reason is the president of the United States. You know, why do you want to spend time with an individual that insults your leadership of the country, insults the people who live here and when he says he's got many friends here well I don't think he has and

it just doesn't make sense why should we support them when they're very derogatory to us so we decided to look alternate areas for our winter escape

and where are you going to go instead we're going into Mexico into to play a decama playa carma ah okay so we're just

Somewhere new. I mean, you're not even familiar with it. You've never been down to Mexico before? Oh, I have been. Our trailer was about seven miles from the Mexican border. Okay. So we have been in it, and I have been to a number of spots in Mexico. I'd love the place dearly. But this is a different spot for us, and that's why we're trying it. I mean, tell me a little bit about how long had you gone to Texas? Oh, since probably 12, 15 years. would go for late October, early November, and then come back by April 1st. And so you would have friends down there?

You'd be part of a community down there? Yes. Most of the people in Pine to Palm, where we were, are Canadians. And a lot of them were contemporaries from our neighborhood up here in Fort Garry and Winnipeg. What will you miss the most about not being down there? the lifestyle it's very laid back that people down there are friendly especially the Hispanic population you couldn't ask for a nicer group of people yeah golf wandering around in shorts and a t-shirt

things like that it's just an easy way of life and then suddenly you have to leave and come back north was it a tough decision for you to not go back there i mean as you said You weren't pleased with what the U.S. president was saying, but did you have to mull it over? Well, it was a question my wife asked after the border closed because of the pandemic. What do you do with your property when you're 3,000 clicks away and you can't access it? You can't even look at it. When we finally got down after being away for over a year, there were a number of issues like plumbing had broken. and other things that you would normally look after in maintenance.

But there's no one down there that you can rely on to look after things. So that was probably the first part of our thinking to be that far away and maybe being isolated against from it. And then Mr. Trump arrived and with all his glory. Do you have friends who are still going back down? I mean, despite everything, they have decided that it's the right thing for them to do to go back to Texas? Yes. And some of them are for health reasons.

They can't take the cold. It's a circulation issue or other medical issues, and they need to be someplace warm. So, yes, they've gone. They'll be drifting back probably within the next two, three weeks, and we can then talk to them and see what their experiences were. Just finally, what do you think it would take for you to get back to the United States? Well, firstly, the change in attitude for Mr. Trump, his removal and all the people around him and see the issue is not only him it's he talks to a lot of people and a lot of americans think he's telling the truth and the way to act so you come down and you

wonder are you going to be a target are you going to be subject to some abuse you don't need that and when he's gone i think the temperature will lower and the feeling will be much better and we can get back to being normal if that's possible. In the meantime, the temperature will be very different in Mexico than it is this morning in Winnipeg. Oh, yes. I look forward to it. Charlie, safe travels. It's good to talk to you.

Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Charlie Burt was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, used to head to Texas, now heading to Mexico. Joanne McAlpine-Stiles is from Moncton. She's been spending her winters in Florida for over a decade. According to the website, Visit Florida. visits by Canadians to that state

dropped by something like 20% in the second quarter of this year compared to 2024. Joanne and her husband are among the Canadians still deciding to go to Texas or down to Florida, pardon me, and she is in Zephyr Hills just north of Tampa. Joanne, good morning to you.

It's Joan. Joan, pardon me, my apologies. That's okay. Tell me a little bit about I'm in call worse. Tell me a bit about why you're deciding to go down to Florida. Florida. What is it? We just heard from somebody who said he's not going to Texas. You're going to Florida. Why are you making that trip? I guess there are a number of reasons why. Number one, I guess we love it here. We've been coming here. This will be 2026 will be our 13th year being here. We have property here. We have a lot of friends here. The lifestyle, the climate. All of those reasons are the reasons we're here. This is our winter home. And it has been, and we've been very happy here and hope to continue to be so, even with the issues that have occurred throughout the country and the administration that is now in power.

Tell me about those issues. You told our colleagues in Moncton that earlier this year you had some uncertainty about returning back to Florida. I think everybody did. There was concern about going across the border. You hear horror stories. Our entrance to the United States was absolutely flawless. excuse me no problem whatsoever

and last year when we left in the spring I think there was a bit of concern as to what the feeling was going to be of fellow Floridians that were here, what the American people might feel. But I have encountered none of that

at all. In fact, I've laughed and said for Canadians who are always telling historically we get well teased about the fact that we say, oh we're sorry, we're sorry, we're always saying we're sorry. That has changed now. It's the Americans who are saying sorry, sorry, sorry. And that happens on a frequent basis. I've had clerks come out from behind counters and stores that I've visited over the past 12 years and hugged me and said, I'm so happy

that you're back. Thank you for coming back. We're so glad you're here. And I think the drop in the number of people coming has really affected all of the stores and the businesses in Florida. I was going to ask, have you noticed that drop? I mean, the statistics are one thing, but have you noticed just out and about fewer Canadians there than in years past? Oh, definitely, definitely. There's no Canadian plates in parking lots, and I think that was one of the first things we noticed on our trip down in early November

is that you didn't have any Canadian license plates on the road, which is strange for that time of the year, because that's usually the exodus to Florida. Did you, I mean, part of this is about people feeling that they don't want to be in a country where the president is insulting our country and saying he's going to take it over and what have you. Did the comments by Donald Trump give you any pause at all? The comments by Donald Trump infuriate me more than I could ever tell you. Yes, I find it very upsetting and I think every Canadian does, and rightfully so. But I think the thing that you have to remember is that this is one individual, Matt.

It's not the population. I'm sure as in every country, Canada and the U.S. or any other country in the world, there are people who have extreme ideas. But the majority of people are kind and friendly and they don't feel that way. It's just this one person. And sadly, I feel really bad because I think there's... been a rift to a certain degree that may take years to repair between the two countries. I mean, it's been sort of like your best friend just kind of slapped you, and that's very

troublesome, and it makes everyone upset. But the majority of people that live here do not feel that way. They are feeling the pain. They're feeling the pain of tariffs. They're feeling the pain of high cost, just the same way Canadians are. And they don't like what's going on. But like a lot of people, I think probably even in the present administration, nobody is going to stay too much because they're a little bit afraid to speak. I'll let you go, but you mentioned people apologizing. One of the things people often say is that you don't want to talk about politics or other prickly matters with friends and family.

Do these issues come up when you're sitting around with your friends down in Florida? Never. We don't talk politics at all. But if someone, the point I was making is that it's surprising that people that don't even know you when they find out your Canadian will come up to you and say, we're sorry, we're glad you're here. That is something I've never seen before. And it hasn't happened just once, but numerous times. Joan, glad to talk to you about this. Thank you very much. Oh, you're most welcome. And Merry Christmas.

And same to you. All the best down south where it's much warmer, I think, than much of the rest of this country. 26 degrees is that pool weather. You're making us hurt. Joan McAlpine-Styles as a resident of Moncton spends her winters in an RV park in Florida. She was in Zephyr Hills, Florida, which is just a little bit north of Tampa. Dragon's Den is celebrating 20 years of supporting Canadian entrepreneurs, 20 years of innovative ideas, groundbreaking products, and inspiring stories from Canadian businesses. And this season has all of the wheeling and dealing that.

change the lives of countless dreamers. Now, with Celebrity Dragon Drew Scott from Property Brothers. Don't miss season 20 of Dragon's Den. Watch free on CBC Gem. Wayne Smith is a professor at the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, director of the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research

at Toronto Metropolitan University. He's with me in our Toronto studio. Good morning. Good morning. The stats are one thing. What do we know about how significant the drop is in terms of Canadians not heading to the United States? There's a number that everyone seems to be ignoring. There is a big report done with the U.S.,

all the northern states that just put out. Two of the states recorded the credit card spending. And both of them, Montana and Vermont, were down over 40 to almost 50% in credit card spending. And that's the real number, because people look at the border numbers going to cross. Well, that counts everyone who's going to cross for work or crossing for, you know, transport trucks

and stuff like that. When you look at the credit card numbers and we're seeing spending down between 40 and 50 percent, that is showing that it's having a real impact. I mean, both of our guests, Joan, and earlier in the conversation that we had, we're talking about the fact that they agree that the comments from Donald Trump are egregious, that they're upset by what the president has said, and yet they are also, you know, split on what they're doing. Some people are going. Some people aren't going. What is your sense as to why folks aren't making that trip who aren't going down across the border? Tourism at its heart is a safety industry. You have to feel like you're going to be safe at the destination you're going to. And different people have different levels

of safety threshold, right? So some people will walk down a certain street and think, oh, this is perfectly fine. And some people say, oh, I don't want to go down that street because it's dangerous. You know, so some people look at, you know, for example, crossing the border, if they have threshold and then they're worried about, you know, going to secondary inspection and all those things, or worried about the ice, or worried about the, not following all the rules, the new rules about staying more than 30 days and getting the fingerprinting and stuff like that, you know, different people will have very different thresholds and you're seeing that right now. Do you think that, I mean, those new rules in particular about if you're staying for more than

30 days, has that turned some people off? I think it definitely has. I think the whole idea that when you're crossing, you want to feel like you're part of a community, right? So when you're crossing and all of a sudden we're going to fingerprint you and we're going to, you know, do the biometrics and take it your picture, it for some people makes them feel like they've done something wrong, even though they've done nothing wrong. And just that feeling, it creates that insecurity,

which creates a feeling that am I welcome here. What does it mean for the local economies? I mean, again, this goes back to the credit card data that you're talking about. We've heard stories of Vegas, for example, the number of Canadians who aren't going to Las Vegas and spending all sorts of money, those border states as well, but also down in places like Florida and Arizona and Palm Springs or a lot of Canadians would go to escape the cold weather. What does that mean for their economies?

Well, the big news you're going to see is come February when they're starting to work on next year's budgets. All of a sudden, all those taxes that they're getting from the accommodations tax, the food preparation tax, the different taxes, the admissions taxes, all those revenues, the sales taxes in Buffalo, for example, would be another one, they take a big portion of that to help run those cities. So the U.S. tax system is different than the Canadian one, where a lot of those tourism taxes actually fund a lot of local and state services. So when you take away that tax base, all of a sudden, you're looking at, there's been estimates in Orlando, for example, that 29% of the property tax

is saved by the tourism taxes. So you're not going to raise taxes 29% of property taxes, so what are you going to do? Something's going to be cut. Exactly. Joan talked about the fact that when she's down in Florida,

people apologize to her, that they feel as though they need to say something. What is your sense of that? That relationship that people have in the places, if they are choosing to go, the relationship that they have

with the people in those communities? On an individual basis, people are nice. Just like anywhere else, right? You can go somewhere and you get individual relationships and what I'm looking face to face with someone, you know, we're going to be kind,

we're going to be nice to one another and civil most of the time. But what happens is when you're looking at the percentage of people who take Florida, for example, you had more than 50% of the people vote for Trump. And they knew sort of what he's all about. They had a whole first term with them. I lived in the States during the first Trump term,

so I experienced it. So, you know, they knew that what they were getting into, but they still voted for it. So it's sort of an interesting kind of dichotomy there that you're seeing. Charlie's not taking his trailer to Texas. He is going to Mexico instead. Where are Canadians going? If they're not going, if we aren't going to Florida and Arizona and what have you,

where are we going instead? Mexico is a big location. You're also seeing some South American countries like Colombia and some of the areas around there would be work. We're also seeing the Dominican Republic. If you're going to Europe, Portugal is the big winner. It seems to be the big winter for Canadian tourists. And you wonder whether people are just saying here as well.

I mean, again, we talk about escaping the winter. Winter's a lovely thing. I mean, if you embrace it, if you lean into it, this country is beautiful in the winter. Is your sense that people are spending, we talk about this, but are people spending more money in this country now? We haven't seen the numbers quite yet for obviously this winter. We're seeing some really good reports out of like Whistled Blackholm and a couple of those other places that their numbers seem to be rising. we haven't seen anything official yet but I think you're going to see places like

Victoria for example do very well this year where people can go there they can escape the snow and have temperate weather at the same time I think you're going to see some places like that do really really well how long term do you think this will be it feels like

I mean the prime minister has talked about the relationship between Canada and the United States being different right now Charlie is looking for in some ways a different administration, but also a different attitude, if he can put it that way. So how long is this going to play out, do you think? This is really interesting because what happens is you're having people break habits. So he was talking about he's been going down 12 to 15 years. Well, if he goes down to Mexico and has a great experience, what's to stop him from going

and that's becoming your new habit? So as consumers, we're very, we like to be buying the same thing over and over and over. Ken, if we get a brand we really like, we tend to buy. it all the time. It's the same type of idea where you're setting new travel patterns and new travel ideas. So this summer, instead of those Quebec visitors going to Old Orchard, well, they're now going to Halifax. Well, if they had a great Halifax experience, what's to stop them from going back to Halifax next year instead of Old Orchard? So if you, this is an opportunity for these destinations to really establish new habits, new customers, and bring them in. And if they treat them well, if they give them good value for money, they could be developing a new customer they

could have for another decade. Treating them well as key. As you said earlier, tourism and travel so much is about feeling comfortable, feeling like you're welcomed there. Exactly. So when you get into these experiences, it's imperative that you get the sense, I am a guest. See, the biggest thing that's turning off a lot of the Canadian market is when they hear the U.S. politicians start talking about, oh, we're losing all this money. No one wants to be thought. of us a dollar sign, you know, no one wants to be thought of, oh, we just miss you because you're spending with us. It's the totally wrong attitude that we're seeing. So that is turning off a lot of people in itself. Have you rethought where you're traveling because of what we're

talking about? You know, I spent, I'm originally from Toronto. I spent 15 years in the States. I have really good friends in Charleston, South Carolina, where I spend 15 years. And a couple of them are in their 70s. I'd love to go see them. And I keep going back and forth whether or not I would I would go or not. I'm leaning to not. But, you know, if something ever happened to one of them, you know, they're my friends. They're my family. And it's really tough to say no to that. It's a personal decision for so many people. Wayne, thank you. Thank you so much. Wayne Smith, professor at the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management Director of the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research at Toronto Metropolitan University.

You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. Podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.