Americans spent $3B in Canada in Q1 2026, up 16.5%, while Canadians’ U.S. trips fell 10.6%

OPPORTUNITY · Hotels & Tourism · Visitor economy data

Statistics Canada’s first-quarter National Travel Survey and Visitor Travel Survey, released August 25 and picked up by BNN Bloomberg on August 30, put hard numbers on the travel realignment operators have been feeling since last year. U.S. residents made 3.6 million trips to Canada in January through March, up 3.4 per cent, but spent $3.0 billion, up 16.5 per cent. Overseas visitors made 990,000 trips (up 3.7 per cent) and spent $2.1 billion (up 10.2 per cent). In both cases spending is growing far faster than trip counts, which means the inbound traveller arriving in Canada right now is a higher-yield guest.

On the outbound side, Canadians took 5.5 million trips to the United States, down 10.6 per cent, and spent $5.0 billion there, down 13.6 per cent, roughly $800 million less than a year earlier. Some of that money stayed home: domestic tourism spending rose 5.1 per cent to $14.5 billion. But the detail worth reading twice is that domestic overnight trips actually declined 1.2 per cent, with all of the domestic growth coming from same-day visits, while Canadians’ overseas trips rose 6.2 per cent and their overseas spending jumped 16.7 per cent. The stay-home dividend is real, but it is thinning and drifting toward Europe and Asia rather than Canadian hotel rooms.

What it means: Alberta’s fall and winter demand will be won on two fronts at once: capturing the higher-spending U.S. and overseas guest who is choosing Canada, and defending domestic overnight stays against an overseas trip that is increasingly winning the comparison. Properties that segment their messaging by origin market and give Canadian travellers a concrete reason to book direct, rather than relying on a generic “explore Alberta” halo, are positioned to keep both lines moving in the right direction.