Trade war pushing Canadians to consider alternate travel options

With tension and uncertainty surrounding the Trump trade war, some in the travel industry say they are seeing an uptick in travellers opting to fly to destinations other than the United States. 

“There has been a lot of anxiety in the traveller who was meant to travel to the United States,” said Rajat Dang, the president of Ola Travels.

“People taking flights and getting connected through New York to other cities in the U.S. or here to Toronto to anywhere else like Dallas, going to conferences, etc, are also cancelling their plans.”

According to Statistics Canada, transborder air travellers to the U.S. declined 2 per cent from February of this year to last, which is the first year-over-year decline since before the pandemic.

“I’ve thought a lot about it and certainly keeping my money in Canada, you know whether that’s checking out local sites in Canada or whether its just purchasing Canadian goods its more of a priority,” said one Winnipegger CityNews spoke to.

Another saying, “Would not go there. Cancelled going to a conference there, and I will not go until all of this is resolved or perhaps until the man in the office is not there anymore.”

But Dang says the Canadian airline industry has to step up and do its part by lowering costs for domestic flights to help out those who want to keep their cash in Canada.

“I check my fares right not, to the U.S., they’ll be cheaper than to anywhere within Canada. From Winnipeg, so you can imagine, to bolster tourism within Canada, we also need good connectivity,” said Dang.