International inbound leisure travel to the United States in
recent months has tailed off pointedly, fueled by antipathy toward the Trump
administration's approach to foreign relations and concern about U.S. entry and
exit procedures. But despite the substantial evidence of an international
inbound leisure downturn, there's little evidence that business travel demand
is following suit in any widespread fashion.
In fact, data shared with BTN from multiple travel suppliers
suggests that even inbound business travel from Canada, where aversion to U.S.
leisure travel arguably is strongest, hasn't drastically weakened in recent
weeks from prior-year levels, even as calls for boycotts mount.
"We're seeing a lot of leisure
customers redirect," said Charlene Leiss, president of the Americas for
travel management company Flight Centre Travel Group, last week of Canadian
travel to the United States. "But we're not seeing the same impact on
corporate, because so many of the corporates have customers or relationships
across the border, and you can't just change that on a dime, nor would you want
to."
A Look at Inbound Data
The return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency on Jan. 20
has been followed by a period of economic and diplomatic upheaval, with Trump's
administration at least temporarily levying a series of tariffs on dozens of
nations, including allies, and issuing executive orders governing the screening
of visitors and immigrants to the United States. A series of publicized
challenges for visitors, including detention, looking to enter or return to the
U.S. followed.
The moves have spurred widespread
concern and resentment overseas. A number of countries have issued travel
advisories for would-be travelers to the United States, businesses have reassessed
entry procedures for corporate travelers, and many citizens of Canada—which
Trump has suggested should join the U.S as a state—boycotting
leisure travel to their southern neighbor.
International travel to the United States has declined.
According to preliminary U.S. International Trade Administration data, the
number of international visitors to the U.S. in January through March 2025,
excluding Canada and Mexico, dropped 3.3 percent year over year. In March, that
figure widened to an 11.6 percent decline from 2024 figures.
However, those declines on balance are limited to tourists.
The U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office also collects data based on the
type of visas and entry forms used when entering the country. According to
preliminary data, travelers entering the U.S. on tourist visas in 2025 through
the end of March declined 6.1 percent (again, excluding Canada and Mexico), and
17 percent in March alone. By contrast, those entering on business visas or
through the Visa Waiver Program year to date through March increased nearly 10
percent year over year, and increased 17.4 percent in March alone.
The data is a stark display that while leisure travelers
outside of the U.S. may be voting with their feet when it comes to finding
other destinations for their holidays, cutting business travel is perhaps a
more complicated consideration.
"We get a lot of calls looking for some doomsday
stories around businesses going sideways and everybody cutting," said Rich
Liu, CEO of travel management company Navan Travel, last week. "What we've
seen is actually year to date, at least through the end of March, we were
actually seeing flights up."
Navan shared some client demand data with BTN, including
that clients' air demand to the U.S. for business travel in 2025 through the
end of March increased 27 percent year over year, and hotel bookings increased
25 percent. (That data is based on a 2024 cohort of clients to eliminate the
effects of the TMC's growth in clientele.)
On the whole, year-to-date air booking volume through April
16 increased 14 percent year over year, with hotel bookings up 9 percent, using
a 2022 cohort of clients. That pace has cooled in April, according to Navan,
with flight bookings up 7 percent and hotel bookings up 4 percent year over
year, but the TMC suggested that isn't definitive evidence of a demand
slowdown, as clients preference for front-loading bookings in the beginning of
the year a possibility.
"It sort of shows that maybe
there are people who are using this data to operate a little more intelligently
and still run their business, which again, we can control," said Liu, who
recently wrote a blog
post cautioning corporate executives against timidity in the uncertain
economy. "We can't control the tariffs, but we can control how well we
execute. And I think what we're hearing is, we need to be vigilant, but let's
go run the business."
Canada's Condition
The calls for Canadians to avoid travel to the United States
in protest of Trump's tariffs, including a call from former prime minister
Justin Trudeau to take domestic vacations, is having an effect. In March,
Canadian residents' return trips from the United States via air declined 13.5
percent year over year even as return air trips from other countries increased
9 percent, according to Statistics Canada, a Canadian federal government
agency. Return trips from the U.S. by car in March, meanwhile, dropped 32
percent year over year, the third month in a row of decline, according to the
agency.
But again, business travel figures tell a different story.
According to Navan's data, total client business travel flight bookings from
Canada to the U.S. in 2025 through April 16 were up 37 percent year over year,
using a 2022 cohort of clients to equalize the effects of the TMC's growth.
Hotel bookings were up 14 percent in the same timeframe, according to the TMC.
April data was softer, although flights still have increased, and Navan again
suggested this could be the result of clients front-loading bookings.
It should be noted that Delta Air Lines president Glen
Hauenstein earlier this month called the carrier's drop-off
in bookings in Canada "significant," and said the carrier could
cut capacity on Canadian routes. But the Navan figures suggest crossborder
business travel remains resilient, even in an emotional time of tension and
resentment.
"The economies of the two countries are inextricably
tied, and most Canadian companies are selling to the U.S. and vice versa,"
Liu said. "And so the idea that, 'I don't like my trading partner,
therefore I'll just stop,' I think is pretty over-simplistic." He added
that "we've actually seen some very robust travel between major Canadian
cities and the U.S., and also our Canadian customers back and forth as they
work to shore up the business."
Real estate data and analytics firm CoStar, parent of
hospitality analytics firm STR, provided BTN with weekly lodging data for U.S.
hotels within 50 miles of the Canadian border to assess the change in demand.
The figures exclude economy-tier hotels, often eschewed by business travelers.
According to CoStar, occupancy at those hotels during the
week ending April 12, the most recent available, increased 0.4 percent year
over year. Weekly year-over-year figures can be noisy here for a few reasons:
Easter, around which business travel is limited, was celebrated March 31 in
2024 but April 20 in 2025, and the April 2024 solar eclipse juiced hotel occupancy
near the border in the Northeast United States.
As such, CoStar also provided four-week running totals to
limit some of those effects. The occupancy decline was sharpest in the
four-week span ending March 15, at 5.2 percent year over year, but since has
eased, and in the span ending April 12 it increased 0.3 percent. STR in
research notes has suggested the seasonal and other factors driving demand
makes it difficult to pinpoint the level to which to attribute the political
situation.
As with the CoStar data, Flight Centre's Leiss said
crossborder demand reached its nadir a few weeks prior but since had
"picked back up, and it's kind of normalized."
Leiss noted that the company's Canadian "leisure
customers are definitely looking at other alternatives, whether it's domestic
or abroad anywhere," but said business travel volume remains steady.
"In corporate we're seeing in spots and places certain
customers might be pulling back, but across the board we're not seeing anything
material yet, and we have not had any experience with any of our corporate
customers in either of our businesses having issues getting into this country
or departing," Leiss said. Flight Centre is the parent company of travel
management companies FCM and Corporate Traveler.
"We'll have to continue watching that trend and see how
the rest of this month pans out, but in general, it's not nearly as negative as
you might think watching the news," Leiss said of international inbound
demand to the United States. "We're still up year on year in the corporate
business. Yield is down and average ticket price is down, and that obviously
impacts our [total transaction value] numbers. But if you look at transaction
count, especially in[the small and midsized enterprise segment], those numbers
are still up both in Canada and in the U.S. business."