Mexico a travel hotspot as Canadian travel to U.S. continues to fall

Travel by Canadians is on the rise, with one major exception: the United States.

Amid an ongoing trade war and talk of annexation by U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadians are making fewer flights across the border, according to information from Statistics Canada.

The latest report on screened passenger traffic at Canadian airports reveals that 5 million passengers were recorded passing through pre-board security screening at Canada’s eight largest airports in October.

That represents a 4.5 per cent increase over the previous October 2024, and a 9.9 per cent jump over pre-pandemic levels in October 2019.

Volumes were higher at each of the eight airports. Halifax saw the biggest increase with an 8.6 per cent gain over last year. In addition, every airport except Ottawa surpassed the pre-pandemic numbers of October 2019.

But those increases came even as travel to the U.S. continues to plummet. Cross-border flights in October fell by 8.9 per cent in October compared to the year before, part of a trend that has continued every month since February.

Those figures refer to air travel alone, but the broader travel picture is similar. In the first quarter of 2025, Canadians clocked up a total of 6.1 million trips to the U.S. by land, sea and air, a decrease of 10.8 per cent year over year.

Meanwhile, international travel (i.e., everywhere else outside the U.S.) rose by 12 per cent, while domestic travel was up 8.5 per cent. In January, cross-border flights rose slightly (0.6 per cent) over the previous year, but every month since has seen a drop in the number of Canadians flying south.

And while the October report doesn’t indicate precisely where those travellers were headed, other data shows the general trend in Canadian travel, with a lot of sunbelt locations on the list.

Statistics Canada’s first-quarter visitor and travel survey for this year found that the top international destination for Canadians was Mexico, with more than 1.2 million trips taken. The Dominican Republic took second place with 467,000 trips, followed by China and Cuba, each with about 220,000, and then Costa Rica and Jamaica.

Second-quarter data painted a similar but more varied picture as warmer weather came to Canada. Mexico remained the top international destination with 471,000 trips taken. But Europe took up the next three spots on the list, with France, the U.K. and Spain all receiving at least 250,000 visitors from Canada. Japan was next, with 235,000 visits, followed by Italy, Portugal and the Dominican Republic, all with about 200,000.

In terms of domestic destinations, the numbers mostly aligned with population. Ontario and Quebec received the most domestic visitors (42.3 and 19.5 per cent, respectively), with Alberta and British Columbia each getting about 12 per cent, and the rest of the provinces splitting the remainder. (Oddly, B.C. took in only 12.6 per cent of domestic travel, but gobbled up 20.9 per cent of spending by domestic tourists.)

And the drop in U.S. travel runs both ways. In September, trips to Canada by U.S. residents declined by 2.6 per cent compared to the previous September, the eighth straight months of decline.

At the same time, trips to Canada by overseas residents continue to rise. In September, 734,200 overseas residents arrived in Canada, up 7.4 per cent from the same month in 2024.

The biggest gains were in arrivals from Europe (up 5.8 per cent) and Asia (a rise of 14.6 per cent). The top three countries in terms of overall numbers were the United Kingdom (110,800), France (73,200) and Germany (59,800), together accounting for a third of all overseas arrivals in September.

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