This story was originally published on LincolnChronicle.org and is used with permission.
Curtis Allen spent considerable time earlier this year planning what he expected would be his next “great trip” to the central Oregon coast.
Allen, who lives about four hours outside Vancouver, British Columbia, had already contacted a number of friends and, accompanied by a bevy of dogs loaded into cars and campers, were all set to stage their own mini-invasion of Tillicum Beach Campground just north of Yachats.
Then, in January, everything changed.
Donald Trump was inaugurated as the United States’ 47th president and with him came his threats to slap steep tariffs on Canadian goods, while also exploring the idea of annexing America’s northern neighbor as its 51st state.
Allen sat down at his computer and fired off a letter to Yachats city officials explaining why he and his party would be no-shows this year.
“Some of our best vacations together have been in your wonderful state, and pictures from our time in Oregon hang on the walls of our home,” he wrote. “This year we planned to return to Yachats and stay longer than usual, even inviting close friends to join us.”
He went on.
“However, due to the recent rhetoric from the President of the United States regarding Canada, we are cancelling our trip – not just to Oregon, but to the United States altogether.”
He ended his one-page missive by adding, “We truly hope to visit again in the future. Until then, thank you for the great memories. Your neighbor, Curtis.”
Although Allen received no replies from Yachats officials, his letter did attract quite a bit of attention from others, including The Washington Post. In the months since, Allen’s resolve to boycott the U.S. until policy changes are made has only hardened.
This isn’t at all what I wanted,” he told Lincoln Chronicle. “I wanted to be coming down there to celebrate my birthday in your country, in your town.
“But we can’t go on just as if everything is normal,” he added. “It’s not.”
A search for answers
With national policy obviously out of the hands of local and state officials, tourism industry executives and others are now racing to figure out how widespread — and potentially damaging — any dramatic drop off of Canadian visitors could be.
Some preliminary numbers are already in, and they don’t paint a promising picture.
Canadian spending in Oregon fell 19.6 percent in February 2025 compared to February 2024, according to Visa credit card transaction data. It also dropped 4.3 percent in January 2025 compared to January 2024.
The drop in Canadian spending to the Oregon coast was even more precipitous, falling 20 percent in February 2025 compared to the same month one year ago. It also fell 2.5 percent in January compared to January 2024.
In addition, Tourism Economics forecasts an 18.9 percent fall in spending from Canadians visiting Oregon for calendar year 2025 compared to all of 2024.
The decline of visitor spending appears more pronounced on Oregon’s north coast right now than areas farther south, which is likely due to the north coast’s proximity to Canada, said Todd Davidson, the chief executive officer of Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism agency.
But as the summer tourism season gets into fuller swing, Davidson said, a drop in spending and visits are bound to be felt all along the state’s 363-mile-long coast.
“It’s definitely fair to say that this is something that is on peoples’ minds,” Davidson said. “Any time we hear that groups of visitors are cancelling their travel plans, which they are, we are very concerned.”
One recent cancellation came from a group of Canadian journalists, who were prepared to return home and write articles about the marvels of traveling along the Oregon coast. The reason for the wasn’t that the journalists don’t like the state, he said, but rather because the Canadian publications willing to print stories about travel to the U.S. had dried up completely.
“As I said,” Davidson added, “we are concerned.”
View from the ground
A number of hotel and restaurant operators say it’s still too early to assess the impact of a drop in Canadian tourism, which represents about 4 percent of all visits to the Oregon coast.
“From my standpoint, we aren’t deep enough into the season yet to assess the effects of any drop offs,” said Josh Conrad, general manager of the Best Western Agate Beach in Newport. “The next couple of months should provide us with a much clearer picture.”
Drew Roslund operates the Overleaf and Fireside motels in Yachats and is on the board of the Oregon Coast Visitors Association, a regional arm of Travel Oregon. While state reports indicate that Canadians account for 4 percent of Oregon’s total tourism flow, he said, that figure rests at between 1 and 2 percent for his coastal properties.
“In reality, it’s not going to be terribly noticeable to us,” Roslund said. “Don’t get me wrong. The loss of one room hurts, but it’s not like we’re losing Eugene, Salem, Bend or Portland.”
That doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist both in Oregon and elsewhere. Roslund underscored his point by noting that his daughter, a nurse in Hawaii, lives in a condominium owned by Canadians.
“They want to sell and sell now,” he said. “They want out and their primary reason for that is Donald Trump. They want nothing to do with any of this.”
Parks too
A similar trend is playing out at state parks, which typically draw thousands of Canadian campers and day-use visitors each year. However, no dramatic dip is being reported so far, parks officials told Lincoln Chronicle.
“When we compare reservations from January this year to last year, we don’t see a spike in cancellations,” Mike Baden, a communications and digital media specialist with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, wrote in a statement. “But we do see a decline in reservations from Canadian addresses.”
From January to May this year, he said, 3,002 reservations were booked by Canadian residents, with 493 of those subsequently being cancelled – a cancellation rate of 16 percent. The cancellation number represented 1.5 percent of all reservations booked across Oregon during the period.
For the same span in 2024, Canadian residents booked 9,330 reservations and cancelled 1,415 of them – a 15 percent rate. All told, Canadian reservations accounted for 4.4 percent of all reservations during 2024.
“We have had a few visitors from Canada contact us to let us know they had cancelled reservations and shared their concerns about federal policy changes,” Baden told the Lincoln Chronicle. “We have let these visitors know that OPRD welcomes all visitors and encourages them to come back when they feel comfortable doing so.”
Regardless of how the next few months play out, it’s inescapable that tourism is a mainstay for not only the central coast’s economy, but for the state as a whole.
Total tourism spending in Oregon in 2024 rang in at $14.3 billion, according to Travel Oregon. It supported 121,020 jobs and produced $691 million in state and local tax revenues.
Total tourism spending for the central coast hit a record $1.071 billion last year, topping 2023’s previous high of $1.029 billion.
In Lincoln County, tourism accounted for a whopping 29 percent as a share of employment. In Malheur and Linn counties, by comparison, those figures were 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
“I’ve been in tourism since 1988,” said Travel Oregon’s Davidson, “and the one thing I’ve heard consistently over all those years is how much Canadians love to come to Oregon and the coast.”
Up in Canada, meanwhile, Curtis Allen is still intent on finding the perfect camping spot for a summer vacation. The main qualification, he said, is that it needs to be “in our own backyard.”
In that, he figures he’s got plenty of company.
“The vast, vast, vast majority of us don’t feel right about supporting the U.S. economy if you’re going to wage an economic war against Canada,” he said. “That lovely stretch of beach we love is one of the best places in the world. But until the threats of tariffs and annexation goes away, we won’t be back.”
- Dana Tims is an Oregon freelance writer who contributes regularly to Lincoln Chronicle, formerly YachatsNews and can be reached at DanaTims24@gmail.com