Trump DEVASTATED as Canadians Choose Bali Over Hawaii

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]tourism industry was already slowing down, but economists say recent travel disruptions and the shutdowns aftermath are adding pressure. It's at 4:30, tourism leaders say more Canadians are canceling their trips to Hawaii because of President Trump.

[00:00:14]>> Someone in British Columbia just canceled nine trips to Maui. [music] Nine. In 10 years, they'd gone nine times. They loved it.

[00:00:21]>> [music] >> They planned for it. They saved for it.

[00:00:24]And last year, they wrote it off. Their words posted online, "We will [music] not step foot into the United States and spend our money there until the orange clown is out of the White House. This year, we're going to the Philippines."

[00:00:37]And then someone else posted, "We canceled our trip to Hawaii and went to Bali. Hawaii lost $36,000." [music] And then someone else canceled San Diego and Hawaii. Currently traveling in Amsterdam [music] and the UK. We estimate we are spending about $14,000 there instead. Three Canadians, one forum thread, $50,000 gone from Hawaii's economy. Multiplied across 500,000 [music] annual Canadian visitors, and you start to understand why Hawaii's own tourism officials are now talking about hiring a dedicated travel ambassador to Canada.

[00:01:14]>> [music] >> Not to grow the market, but just to stop it from collapsing further. This is what the elbows up movement is doing to the most remote tourist destination in the world. Here is what makes the Canadian exodus from Hawaii uniquely devastating compared to every other American destination losing Canadians right now.

[00:01:34]It is not just about the number of visitors. It is about what kind of visitor Canada [music] sends. According to Hawaii Tourism Authority data, Canadian visitors stay an average of 11.36 days. Japanese tourists, Hawaii's largest single international market, average 5.99 days. Canadians stay nearly double, and they spend accordingly. In the first 7 months of 2025, Canadians spent $635 million in Hawaii, compared to $551 million from Japan. That is more total [music] spending from a smaller visitor pool.

[00:02:11]Per trip, Canadians average $2,590.

[00:02:15]Japanese visitors average $1,472. Canada sends Hawaii fewer visitors than [music] Japan and more money every single [music] year. This is not a commodity tourist. This is the highest value international visitor Hawaii has and they are leaving. Hawaii's Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, the state's own official data agency, confirmed it in cold numbers. In January 2026, 49,616 [music] Canadians arrived in Hawaii. That is an 8.7% [music] decline from January 2025.

[00:02:57]Total Canadian spending that month, $134.6 million, down 10.3% from the same month a year earlier.

[00:03:07]February 2026 was down another 4.6%.

[00:03:12]Hawaii's own tourism agency described the reason for the continuing Canadian decline in its official report with complete directness, social and political challenges.

[00:03:21]>> [music] >> That is a government document using the phrase social and political challenges to explain why Canada is leaving, not a market correction, not post-pandemic [music] volatility, social and political challenges. And Maui tells an even sharper story. Canadian visitor arrivals to Maui in April 2025 were down 28% compared to April 2019, before the pandemic, before the trade war, before everything. Javier Barberi, who owns Mala Ocean Tavern in Waikiki and Koko Deck and Pizza Paradiso on Maui, told Hawaii Business Magazine exactly what that looks like from the floor of a working restaurant. [music] He said Hawaiian Tourism Authority figures show the Canadian decline clearly and that his restaurants have seen a notable drop [music] in Canadian visitors, particularly in breakfast and lunch service, the meals long-stay visitors eat before hitting the beach.

[00:04:18]>> [music] >> He is actively working to ensure every Canadian who does visit leaves with memories [music] good enough to share back home. That is a restaurant owner trying to keep word-of-mouth alive for a market that is quietly exiting. [music] Outrigger Hospitality Group, which operates resorts across the islands, told Hawaii Business Magazine that its Hawaii properties had strong first-quarter 2025 performance and then conditions changed. That pivot point tracks exactly with when Canadian booking sentiment hardened following Trump's tariff announcements and the 51st state rhetoric. [music] Before the political temperature rose, Canadians were booking Hawaii at normal levels. After it rose, they stopped.

[00:04:59]Here is the other number the headlines are missing. Hawaii is one of the American destinations actually holding up better than most [music] against the Canadian boycott. The University of Hawaii's Economic Research Organization estimates the national range of Canadian travel decline to the US is between 20% and 30% depending [music] on the metric.

[00:05:19]Canada's pullback from Hawaii has been for now somewhat smaller. The reason Hawaii is different [music] from Florida or Las Vegas in one crucial way. It requires a flight regardless of where you are coming from. You cannot drive to Maui. You cannot pop across a land border for a long weekend. The friction of getting to Hawaii is high enough that Canadians who go there tend to be committed, high-spending travelers [music] who are not easily scared off by a short-term boycott sentiment. But two months of sequential declines confirmed by official DBEDT data in arrivals and spending simultaneously signal that even committed Hawaiian devotees are starting to make different choices. And a Longwoods International survey found 59% of Canadian travelers say they are less likely to visit the United States in 2026 [music] with 73% of those citing both tariffs and statements by US political leaders as the primary factors driving that decision. That is not a temporary cooling off period. That is a structural sentiment shift. And when it reaches Hawaii's core Canadian visitor, the one who comes 11 days at a time and spends $2,600 [music] per trip, the impact is disproportionate to their share of the total visitor count.

[00:06:33]>> [music] >> Where are they going instead? The Canadian who used to book Maui nine times in 10 years is [music] now booking the Philippines. The Vancouver couple who canceled $36,000 in Hawaii travel is now in Bali. Portugal's Algarve coast is seeing Canadian inquiries it had never received before. Mexico, [music] in particular Los Cabos and the Riviera Maya, absorbed a 20% surge in Canadian visitors in 2025.

[00:06:59]Domestic Canadian tourism grew 2.7% in 2025 with tourism GDP in Canada growing at an annualized rate of 4.8%.

[00:07:09][music] Canadians are not staying home. They are discovering that the world is larger than America assumed they knew.

[00:07:16]Meanwhile, Hawaii is positioning itself carefully. Tourism officials are discussing appointing a dedicated [music] Canadian travel ambassador, a direct line to the Canadian market designed to communicate that Hawaii is different from the mainland, that the islands are welcoming, that the aloha spirit is genuine regardless of what is happening in Washington. It is a reasonable strategy. Hawaii has always occupied a special place in the Canadian travel imagination. The emotional connection to the islands runs deep for many Canadian families, and unlike some American destinations, Hawaii can legitimately argue that its culture, its geography, and its people exist somewhat apart from the politics of the federal government that governs it. But here is the core problem with that strategy.

[00:08:01]When a Canadian traveler books a flight to Maui, they do not clear customs in Maui. They clear customs at a US airport. They deal with US border agents. [music] They enter the United States. And in 2026, that is the friction point. Not the hotel, not the beach, not even the price. It is the passport control. It is the anxiety about what happens at the border in a country [music] that has been publicly hostile to theirs. An ambassador in Toronto handing out brochures cannot fix that. Only a change in the political environment can. And that change is not on the horizon. What Hawaii's tourism officials understand, even if no one is saying it publicly, is that the Canadian market is not just declining. It is being tested for alternatives. And the alternatives are passing the test. Bali is warm. The Philippines have beaches.

[00:08:54]Portugal has sun and wine and a fraction of the geopolitical friction. Canadians spending 11 days at a destination are exactly the kind of high-engagement traveler who will notice whether they actually prefer where they ended up. And some of them will. Hawaii will survive this. The islands are extraordinary and the loyalty of returning visitors runs deep. But the question the state's tourism industry has to answer honestly is this: How many seasons does a Canadian family try Bali, fall in love with it, and never come back? Because the $635 million Canada spent in Hawaii's first 7 months of 2025 is not guaranteed. It it was. And right now, someone who spent nine winters in Maui is planning their first trip to the Philippines. Was Hawaii worth protecting? Drop it in the comments and subscribe to Travel Watch because we are tracking every destination losing the visitors that Washington decided were expendable.