ALBANY \u2014 A report by the New York State Comptroller\u2019s Office revealed New York saw the steepest drop in international tourism last year.<\/p>\n
The report, released by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Thursday, said overseas travelers fell 3% in New York, which is equal to a loss of over 176,000 visitors and second only to California.<\/p>\n
DiNapoli said the impact was felt more for areas near the Canadian border, where travel from Canada fell by more than 21%, which is a decrease of nearly 3.6 million visitors. Exports to Canada also declined by $3.8 billion due to tariffs, the highest decline in exports, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cFederal policies are driving foreign travelers away and taking billions in tourism spending and harming our economy as exports substantially decline,\u201d DiNapoli said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat loss of revenue means fewer jobs in New York and tougher times for those working in the tourism industry. We\u2019re already seeing the consequences, especially in hotels and restaurants in those regions near the Canadian border. New York is a top destination for tourists to the U.S., and policies that welcome and encourage international travel are needed to avoid damaging economic consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a result of new tariff policies implemented under the Trump administration in 2025, exports to almost half of New York\u2019s trading partners declined, DiNapoli said.<\/p>\n
Local impact<\/p>\n
North Country Chamber of Commerce President Garry Douglas said the impact of tariffs so far is \u201ccomplicated but real.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully, the U.S. continues to respect the USMCA ( United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) free trade agreement with Canada, established under the first Trump Administration, with over 90% of goods back and forth still duty free. But increased tariffs on such fundamental Canadian goods as aluminum, steel and building materials are widely complicating costs and competitiveness,\u201d Douglas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore broadly, tariffs and counter-tariffs are certainly impacting sectors, such as agriculture and food products.\u201d<\/p>\n
Douglas said what \u201cthey cannot quantify but know is substantial\u201d are the impacts of uncertainty, such as USMCA now being under formal review.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no question, as a region that enjoys immense cross-border manufacturing investment and supply chains, that many capital investments remain on hold, as do other business developments that otherwise would have been occurring,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, USMCA will be reaffirmed in the coming months, after which we can expect many stalled investments to proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n
DiNapoli’s report showed tourism-related Gross Domestic Product was also flat in 2025, hotel occupancy fell 1.2% and employment trends were uneven, down 2.6% in the North Country and 2% in Western New York, but up 1% in New York City.<\/p>\n
Douglas said the chamber plans to continue its messaging and outreach to convey how uniquely connected the region is with Canadians, which was amplified recently when the Quebec government proposed and signed an Affirmation of Friendship between Quebec and New York’s North Country.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the cross-border travel front, we remain saddened most of all by the impact on people-to-people relations and continue our ‘We Know Canadians As’ messaging campaign on both sides of the border, valuing the incredibly special importance of Canada to the U.S. for more than 150 years,\u201d Douglas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur particular area is turning the corner, to a degree, having seen a full return of Canadian traffic over the holidays and, in January and February, an improvement from a 30% drop to 20%. Notably, in the Plattsburgh area, hotel occupancy has been up, as have sales tax receipts, but there are categories of area business that have felt a disproportionate drop, such as recreation and groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY \u2014 A report by the New York State Comptroller\u2019s Office revealed New York saw the steepest drop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,75127,56,12715,12714],"class_list":{"0":"post-187426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-nnybusiness","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-statenews","15":"tag-top_stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}