BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2013 You might call jet boating risky business. But it\u2019s been getting riskier lately \u2013 and what\u2019s rocking the boat isn\u2019t waves.<\/p>\n
John Kinney is the president of Whirlpool Jet Boat Tours \u2013 the only business in Niagara County that\u2019s currently participating in the NY Loves Canada program. The initiative gives discounts to visitors from over the border to kickstart cross-border tourism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe numbers didn’t speak well for Canadians coming over,\u201d said Kinney. \u201cThat wasn’t happening because of political rhetoric. It was not happening for difficulties with long lineups at the border and all of those challenges \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Tourism Economics, Canadian spending in New York dropped $480 million in 2025. In Niagara County, visitor spending declined by 5%.<\/p>\n
Sara Cercone is the director of communications for Destination Niagara U.S.A., a nonprofit that works with local businesses to promote tourism. She said that she\u2019s encouraging more businesses to join the NY Loves Canada program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve had such a great relationship with both Canadians and people from all over the world,\u201d Cercone said. \u201cIf you go down to the Falls today, you’ll see people from all over the world speaking all sorts of languages, and we want to make sure that people feel welcome no matter where they’re from.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s a Cinderella story happening just upriver. In Erie County, tourism numbers are up despite international tensions.<\/p>\n
Brian Hayden, senior communications manager for Visit Buffalo, partially attributes the increase to a new marketing strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first time in our organization’s history, we have a sustained advertising campaign in direct flight markets like Boston and Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.,\u201d said Hayden. \u201cWe’re able to spread word about Buffalo like we never did before.<\/p>\n
Most other tourism promotion \u2013 including Destination Niagara U.S.A. \u2013 has focused on neighboring cities, including Cleveland, Erie and Toronto.<\/p>\n
Still, Hayden isn\u2019t abandoning our neighbors to the north.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are our neighbors. And [in] some cases they\u2019re our relatives and our friends too. And the ties run deep between our two regions,\u201d said Hayden. \u201cThey had always been an important part of just the Buffalo story too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NY Loves Canada campaign offers deals throughout September \u2013 with some discounts remaining valid until December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2013 You might call jet boating risky business. But it\u2019s been getting riskier lately \u2013 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113,2025,3365,127323,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,200],"class_list":["post-339091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-buffalo","tag-community-news","tag-economy","tag-megan-acker","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339091","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=339091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}