\u201cOur friends at home said, \u2018No, don\u2019t go!\u2019 \u201d said Lois Chapman, a longtime annual visitor from Ontario who came to Palm Springs this month for a shortened stay with her husband after initially planning to cancel their trip altogether. <\/p>\n
Chapman said that her flight from Toronto in early February was mostly empty and that there was a palpable decline in Canadian tourists in the desert town. <\/p>\n
\u201cCanada, I think, is just feeling hurt. It\u2019s the climate these days,\u201d said Chapman, a septuagenarian who was volunteering for Modernism Week, a Palm Springs festival celebrating midcentury architecture and interior design. <\/p>\n
Canadians \u2014 who pump millions of dollars into the economies of Palm Springs and other Coachella Valley cities \u2014 often book long stays up to a year in advance, providing a measure of stability for hoteliers and Airbnb owners, said Kenny Cassady, director of business development for Acme House Co., which manages vacation rental properties in the region. <\/p>\n
This winter, tourist-oriented businesses are having to adjust to more uncertainty, he said. <\/p>\n
![\"Panorama](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771846639_603_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The Vista Las Palmas neighborhood in Palm Springs. Many Canadians who usually visit every year are worried about traveling to the United States because of Trump\u2019s immigration and border policies and his jabs at their country.<\/p>\n
With more Canadians staying home, those reliable long stays have been replaced by shorter reservations, booked at the last minute, primarily by domestic travelers, said Cassady, who also is a board member for Visit Greater Palm Springs, a tourism marketing agency for the Coachella Valley.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all in that nail-biting, last-minute phase of, \u2018Are we going to get these rooms booked or not?\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cSo far, we\u2019re sliding across the finish line with an, \u2018OK, that wasn\u2019t horrible.\u2019 But it\u2019s definitely more stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cassady, a licensed real estate agent, did three transactions in 2025. All were Canadians selling their Palm Springs condos. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nobody that\u2019s happy or thrilled about what we\u2019re dealing with right now,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re doing our best to say, \u2018We\u2019re here, we love our Canadians, and please come back and see us.\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n
Statewide, the number of Canadian visitors fell just over 18%<\/a> in 2025 compared with the year prior, according to Visit California, a nonprofit focused on tourism in the state.<\/p>\n In 2024<\/a>, some 1.7 million Canadians visited California, spending an estimated $3.7 billion, according to Visit California. <\/p>\n Last year, the number of Canadian visitors slipped to 1.4 million, according to the nonprofit.<\/p>\n The decline came in spite of a marketing campaign<\/a> by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Visit California aimed at Canadians, with the governor emphasizing that the Golden State is more than 2,000 miles away from the White House.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, You-Know-Who is trying to stir things up back in D.C., but don\u2019t let that ruin your beach plans,\u201d Newsom said. (You-Know-Who, of course, being Trump.) <\/p>\n Palm Springs Councilmember Ron DeHarte, pictured in 2025, was mayor when the city hung banners downtown proclaiming, \u201cPalm Springs [Heart] Canada.\u201d Snowbirds are important to the local economy.<\/p>\n (Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Trump has upended the typically friendly relationship between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. He has mocked Canada by calling it America\u2019s \u201c51st state,\u201d repeatedly referred to Prime Minister Mark Carney as \u201cGovernor Carney\u201d and threatened to annex the country, whose population of 40 million is about the same as California\u2019s. <\/p>\n Trump invoked emergency powers<\/a> last year to justify stiff new tariffs on Canadian imports, arguing in an executive order<\/a> that the trafficking of illegal drugs \u2014 namely, fentanyl \u2014 across the northern border constituted a dire threat to American security.<\/p>\n Last week, the U.S. House voted to rescind<\/a> Trump\u2019s tariffs on Canada, with the support of six Republicans \u2014 including<\/a> Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin). It was a rare rebuke of the president from the GOP-led chamber, albeit a largely symbolic one since Trump probably would veto the measure if it reached his desk.<\/p>\n \u201cAny Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!\u201d Trump posted on social media<\/a> the day of the vote. <\/p>\n Trump also posted<\/a> that he planned to block the opening of a new bridge<\/a> connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, because he believed Canada had been exploiting the United States. <\/p>\n In Canada, elected officials and business owners have urged residents to \u201cbuy Canadian.\u201d And the famously polite northerners have taken their vacation dollars elsewhere. <\/p>\n Palm trees, warm weather and the San Jacinto Mountains make Palm Springs a popular tourist draw for Canadian snowbirds.<\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t see this ending any time soon,\u201d said McKenzie McMillan, a travel advisor for the Vancouver-based Travel Group, noting that demand for leisure trips to the U.S. is \u201cvery low.\u201d<\/p>\n Not only are Canadians angry about<\/a> the president\u2019s tariffs and comments about their country, he said, but they also are worried about their safety as international visitors and about extra scrutiny at the border because of Trump\u2019s aggressive crackdown on immigration. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of times in my life where Canadians protest or speak with their wallets, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen an issue where Canadians have had such a resolve,\u201d he added. \u201cPeople have completely changed their consumer habits.\u201d<\/p>\n McMillan said he has noticed \u201ca bit of a softening\u201d in attitudes toward blue California in recent weeks because of the \u201cpretty effective marketing\u201d by Newsom and the state tourism board, as well as toward Hawaii, which is viewed as somewhat disconnected from mainland U.S. politics. <\/p>\n The few trips that McMillan has booked to the States are mostly last-minute jaunts with inexpensive airfare \u201cbecause no one is on the planes.\u201d <\/p>\n Many of his clients are opting instead to travel to the Caribbean and to Mexico, which is \u201cabsolutely out of control for us this year,\u201d with resorts packed with Canadians, he said. <\/p>\n McMillan said he personally enjoys Palm Springs, Los Angeles and San Diego but that he has not been to the States since two days after Trump won the 2024 election.<\/p>\n \u201cI do love the people and the destinations, but it just doesn\u2019t feel like the right time right now,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n In an email to The Times, Jake Ingrassia, a spokesperson for Palm Springs International Airport, said Canadian demand is softer than at its pre-pandemic peak but has \u201cstayed relatively level over the past couple of years.\u201d <\/p>\n Airline schedules this spring, he said, indicate \u201ca modest frequency adjustment, not a major pullback,\u201d with Canadian-originating service, on average, \u201cdown by less than one arriving flight per day in March, April, and May\u201d \u2014 some of the busiest months.<\/p>\n The airport, he added, saw a record 3.3 million passengers in 2025 \u2014 growth that was primarily driven by domestic travel. <\/p>\n Still, so-called snowbirds are vital to the region\u2019s economy. A 2021 study<\/a> done for Visit Greater Palm Springs found that Canadians owned 7% of second homes in the Coachella Valley, far more than citizens of any other country except the U.S. Another study<\/a>, in 2017, found that roughly 303,600 Canadians visited the Coachella Valley that year, spending more than $236 million.<\/p>\n Midcentury Modern architecture in Palm Springs is a big draw during Modernism Week.<\/p>\n Lisa Vossler Smith, the chief executive of Modernism Week \u2014 a 10-day festival that began last week and is expected to draw more than 100,000 attendees \u2014 said that organizers have been worried about decreased international tourism, especially from Canada. <\/p>\n But so far, domestic ticket sales \u2014 especially from colder cities like Chicago, New York and Minneapolis \u2014 have made up for the slump, she said. <\/p>\n Vossler Smith said that during a kickoff event for the nearly 500 volunteers who help with Modernism Week, she asked for a show of hands from \u201cour Canadian friends.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI swear, it was a third of the room that their hand went up,\u201d she said. \u201cThe entire room exploded in applause because we were so delighted they came back.\u201d <\/p>\n In conversations afterward, she said, several told her that the decision to come had been difficult but that they considered themselves part-time Palm Springs residents and wanted to give back. <\/p>\n Chapman said her eyes welled when she saw the hands of fellow Canadian volunteers go up. <\/p>\n \u201cI was surprised and very pleased,\u201d said Chapman, who lives in the city of Niagra-on-the-Lake near the famed waterfalls. \u201cIt made everyone teary-eyed. We\u2019d like things to be better.\u201d <\/p>\n For the last 15 years, she and her husband have visited Palm Springs for two to three months, booking their stay as much as a year in advance. They had planned to cancel this year\u2019s trip because of the tensions between the two countries. <\/p>\n But then came a message from a Modernism Week organizer, hoping Chapman would return for her 10th year of volunteering. He assured her that Palm Springs is \u201cin a blue bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n Chapman said her husband would agree to come only if they shortened their trip. In October \u2014 months later than normal \u2014 they reserved a tiny studio for a 29-day trip that will extend into early March. <\/p>\n In January, when they typically would have been in balmy Palm Springs, the weather back home was dreadful, she said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were snowed in and iced in for three days at our house,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n During Modernism Week events, Chapman said, she is telling more people than ever that she\u2019s Canadian. <\/p>\n \u201cThey are all like, \u2018Oh, thank you for coming,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are so gracious to us and welcoming us and thanking us for coming \u2014 and then apologizing.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is the peak of the so-called high season in Palm Springs, that busy time of year when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[103,9567,16470,275,192,223394,223398,223396,223397,24853,968,79,5753,3479,2830,223395,2394],"class_list":["post-485605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-canada","tag-canadians","tag-country","tag-day","tag-environment","tag-lois-chapman","tag-mckenzie-mcmillan","tag-modernism-week","tag-other-coachella-valley-city","tag-palm-springs","tag-president-trump","tag-science","tag-trip","tag-trump","tag-u-s","tag-visit-california","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Palm](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771846640_341_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Palm](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771846640_303_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771846641_675_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n