Canadians are cancelling trips to Walt Disney World. This isn’t speculative, it’s something we’ve heard from many Canada-based readers in the comments to multiple unrelated posts. This addresses that, discussing the possible impacts on attendance and discounts if ongoing tensions continue to boil over and result in further boycotts of the United States.
Canada is the top source of international visitors to the United States, with 20.4 million visits in 2024, generating $20.5 billion in spending and supporting 140,000 American jobs. According to the U.S. Travel Association, just a 10% reduction in Canadian travel could mean 2.0 million fewer visits, $2.1 billion in lost spending, and 14,000 job losses.
Not coincidentally, the top 5 most visited states by Canadians are Florida, California, Nevada, New York, and Texas. These states could see disproportionate declines in retail and hospitality revenue as a result. Although it’s difficult to discern what percentage of Walt Disney World guests are Canadian, it’s our strong suspicion that number is also disproportionate. Even more importantly, international visitors as a whole have the highest per-guest spending metrics of all guests.
Unfortunately, Walt Disney World doesn’t release attendance numbers, let alone demographic breakdowns. We do know that international numbers rose 7% about a decade ago because Disney itself reported that. Estimates at that time pegged international tourists as accounting for 18-22% of all guests to Walt Disney World.
Visit Orlando, Florida’s official tourism arm, does release visitation numbers. It’s probably safe to assume that the city’s numbers more or less reflect Walt Disney World’s numbers. Per these numbers, the City Beautiful welcomed 6.13 million international visitors in 2023, an increase of 25% over 2022 numbers. Canada is Orlando’s top international market, with more than 1.2 million visitors traveling to Orlando in 2023, the highest number from this market in Orlando’s history.
The 2023 international visitation numbers represent 94% of pre-pandemic (2019) levels, with Canada, U.K. and Brazil remaining the top three international origin markets to Orlando. For those who are curious, here’s the country-by-country breakdown:
- Canada: 1,256,000 (↑ 46%) – All-time record-breaking visitation number
- United Kingdom: 877,000 (↑ 8%)
- Brazil: 696,000 (↑ 21%)
- Mexico: 432,000 (↑ 10%)
- Colombia: 302,000 (↑ 5%)
While Visit Orlando hasn’t yet released 2024 data (2023’s numbers were released last May, so we have a few months), they predicted an ongoing increase thanks in part to–I kid you not–Country Bear Musical Jamboree. (It’s just one point on a very long list, but I’ll take it. The Canadians have spoken, and they love singing bears! My people.)
We can infer that projections of another record-setting 2024 for travel to Orlando from Canada are probably accurate thanks to monthly data from the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.
The GOAA reports that international traffic at Orlando International Airport (MCO) was up 11.7% year-over-year in 2024, whereas domestic travel was down 2.6%. This is consistent with expectations about lagged pent-up demand for international travel coinciding with an exhaustion of the same for domestic travel. (It’s the same reason Disney Cruise Line continues to outperform–or at least, one of the reasons.)
Without doing a deep dive, data on the percentage of passengers through MCO from Canada is not readily available, but there’s no reason to believe it materially deviates from the above. You can probably take that 1.25 million number, increase it by 10%, and have a pretty good back-of-napkin estimate of Canadian travelers to Orlando in 2024.
Making a bunch of assumptions given all of the above, we can probably take that a step further and conclude that roughly 3% to 6% of Walt Disney World guests come from Canada. This may not seem like much, but again, keep in mind that their duration of visit is almost assuredly well above-average (meaning they account for more than 3-6% of park attendance and hotel occupancy) as are Canadian per guest spending metrics.
It’s impossible to draw credible conclusions, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Canadians accounted for ~7% of attendance and ~10% of guest spending at Walt Disney World last year. That’s a not-insignificant number!
It’s fairly safe to say that the number of Canadians visiting the United States, Orlando, or Walt Disney World is going to decrease in 2025.
It’s not so much a matter of if, but by how much. The U.S. Travel Association numbers above were predicated on a 10% drop–but that wasn’t a prediction of only a 10% decrease. More an illustration of what each 10% would mean in real terms.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged citizens to spend domestically instead, stating: “Now is the time to choose Canada…It might mean changing your summer vacation plans to stay here in Canada and explore the many national and provincial parks, historical sites and tourist destinations our great country has to offer.”
A chorus of other Canadian leaders have echoed this sentiment, and it’s not just them. There appears to be an online grassroots movement to shift spending from the United States to Canada.
Polling shows souring sentiment among Canadians towards the United States, consumer backlash against American products, and widespread anecdotal reports of cancelled summer vacations to the U.S. by Canadians.
For its part, Calgary-based WestJet says demand for travel to the United States has been “soft” over the last few weeks. “What we have seen though, since the tariff announcements, is that our sales from Canada into the U.S. have actually dropped very significantly,” said Alexis von Hoensbroech, WestJet’s chief executive officer.
The decrease in interest to fly south has dropped by about 25%, WestJet reported, adding the exchange rate likely has something do with the falling demand as well. Other Canadian carriers have indicated that they are monitoring the situation and could reduce or reallocate capacity away from key U.S. markets (including Florida).
Flight Centre, Canada’s largest travel agency, told Forbes it has seen “a surge of customers” already canceling U.S. vacations and rebooking elsewhere, “including bucket-list and milestone experiences valued at over $10,000 CAD.”
In addition to politics, the U.S. dollar (USD) is strengthening as the Canadian dollar (CAD) is weakening.
Since the beginning of last October, the CAD has already weakened about 5%, hurt by trade uncertainty as well as a growing gap between U.S. and Canadian interest rates. The Bank of Canada cutting rates faster than the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the Canadian 2-year note yield has fallen about 160 basis points below its U.S. counterpart, the largest gap since September 1997.
On top of that, there’s the possibility–if not probability–that pent-up demand among international tourists will start running its course in 2025 even in the absence of the above. This has been the trajectory in all other cases, and it’s hard to imagine sustained growth fueled by foreign revenge travel would continue into 2025.
One way or another, it’s probably fair to predict that international visitation to Walt Disney World will, at minimum, decelerate. The base case is that it’ll drop slightly.
The worst case is that a plunge among Canadians will exacerbate a more significant overall drop in attendance that’s otherwise driven by a mixture of international pent-up demand exhausting itself, Universal’s Epic Universe opening, and more cost-conscious consumers trading-down for cheaper vacations. All of these other factors are largely beyond the scope of this post, but we do expect them to occur to varying degrees.
Assuming all of this–or even some of it–unfolds as expected, Walt Disney World will have to pull some of its many “levers” to entice guests to return. This could come in a few forms.
One of these we already know about, which is more new entertainment–the stage shows in DHS and Disney Starlight Night Parade in Magic Kingdom. But our hope and expectation is that Walt Disney World has something more up its sleeve for Animal Kingdom and EPCOT that’ll motivate attendance.
Another will be trying to attract more of the so-called “unfavorable” guests–Florida residents, Disney Vacation Club members, and Annual Passholders. The practical reality is that’s a lot simpler than trying to lure back Canadians. This could include discounts and other incentives–a more aggressive form of the playbook we’ve seen over the last couple of summers.
Speaking of discounts, that’s an obvious answer and there are a couple of approaches here that Walt Disney World might take. The first is to offer aggressive targeted special offers to Canadians. Attempt to overcome their anxieties about traveling to the United States, show that Disney cares and values them, and help bridge the gap on the exchange rate. Basically, make them an offer they can’t refuse and demonstrate that they’re welcome at Walt Disney World. A good move not just for the short-term gain, but as a longer-term goodwill gesture.
The other approach is replacing the lost Canadians with a comparable higher-spending demographic that’ll be easier to capture. In this case, Walt Disney World could chase a different international market. The problem here is that summer is only a few months away, and most families don’t make international travel plans on this short of notice. As such, a more practical alternative might be releasing discounts to domestic guests that take pricier trips and need to be enticed with special offers.
The demographic to target here would be young families with children. Walt Disney World needing to do more to avoid pricing out families is something we discussed at length in Disney Responds to Rising Costs Criticism. Rising costs for middle class families has become a hot topic, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see Walt Disney World address that by rolling out new special offers with discounted vacation packages aimed at this demo.
Discounts like this have been offered in the past: “Disney’s Kid-Sized Deal” and “Play, Stay & Dine” and “Kids Play & Dine for 50% Off.” Something like that, but more aggressive. This could kill two birds with one stone–addressing criticism and replacing lost international travelers with families that will spend more on packages, even discounted ones, than other domestic demographics.
When it comes to crowds, we would not expect much of a noticeable impact solely due to Canadians.
As noted above, roughly 3% to 6% of Walt Disney World guests come from Canada. If half of those guests cancel trips (which is a significantly higher estimate than any available data shows), that’s only a small blip. Unseasonable weather or atypical ride breakdowns would be more noticeable to guests when it comes to wait times or the perception of crowds.
This isn’t to say crowds at Walt Disney World will only be down ~1.5% or by low single-digits this summer. Our current expectation is more of a drop, save for at Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The ‘problem’ is that there will be multiple contributing factors for any decrease in crowds, and it’s impossible to isolate each cause. People will make whatever assumptions confirm their own biases. Universal fans will attribute it solely to Epic Universe, Canadians will point to their boycott, etc.
A couple of concluding notes. First, we’ve received a few questions from Canadians who have concerns about traveling to the United States on the basis of how Americans might treat them. Well for starters, Americans probably won’t know you’re Canadian. As someone who grew up in a border state, I’ve never been able to tell the difference between a Canadian and a Yooper (ditto Minnesotans).
For the sake of discussion, let’s say that you’re going to dress like a Mountie, wear a moose hat, and drape yourself in the Canadian flag. No one will care. You might get comments in support or little jabs with the same played-out dad jokes you’ve probably heard, but the same would’ve been true a year ago. Most Americans love our neighbors to the north, and view comments like that as a lighthearted sibling-type rivalry.
However, it’s obvious that this is a much more heated topic for Canadians and viewed very differently. That much became abundantly clear from watching the 4 Nations Face-Off. In fact, that’s what inspired this post, as those hockey games have made obvious this is not the normal type of dynamic we’ve seen with domestic travel to California or Florida becoming more politically-tinged in recent years. This is personal, and a lot of Canadians will cancel trips because of that.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
