President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff talk, pontifications about Canadian statehood, and his general disparagement of our neighbors to the north appears to be having an impact — on tourism.
Consider what Rochester’s Strong National Museum of Play is seeing.
A robust advertising campaign helped the expanded museum double its Canadian visitors last year.
“We certainly were bullish on this year and hoping and expecting to grow in the Canadian market,” said museum spokesperson Shane Rhinewald.
Outside of Rochester and Buffalo, Toronto is the museum’s next biggest market. And while numbers were trending further upward coming into this month, they aren’t anymore.
“It's fair to say there's definitely some softening that we're starting to see there,” Rhinewald continued. “How much impact there will be, how long term that might be, is obviously hard to say at this point.”
Data show a 10% drop in Canadian patrons so far this month compared to last year — translating to about 800 fewer people. The slump was notable as schools in Ontario were off last week for mid-winter break. It’s an early indicator, potentially. But summer is the true tourist season.
“That’s when we really attract the most people from out of the region,” he said. “So summer will be very telling.”
Tourism generates more than $1 billion in Monroe County, and Canadians account for upwards of 20% of that spending, said Don Jeffries, president and CEO of Visit Rochester. The organization is planning a late-spring relaunch of its Canadian advertising campaign, which had been on pause since the pandemic. The message, he said, has been tweaked to emphasize Rochester and Monroe County as a community that is welcoming to “our Canadian friends.”
“It’s a big market for us,” Jeffries said, noting that a hockey tournament last weekend at the Tim Hortons Iceplex in Henrietta still had a parking lot full on vehicles with Ontario license plates. “One of the things we think is going to help us is the proximity. ... We’re such an easy drive.”
It's a 90-minute drive to the nearest border crossing; less than 3 hours to Toronto.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol saw a similar 10% drop in arrivals at the northern border coming into New York state last month, the most recent data available. That was the beginning of the start-and-stop tariffs. Weather might also have been a factor. But year-over-year numbers had been up for every month prior, going back more than two years — since the pandemic.
Last year, the Museum of Play drew a record 690,500 visitors — more than 157,000 of whom came from outside the United States, according to the organization's annual report. A $70 million expansion opened in mid-2023 aimed to push total annual visits to more than 1 million.
“At this point, you know, that's 800 people in the month of March,” Rhinewald said of the dip. “It's not a major concern. As far as financials, certainly we were projecting growth in Canada. So ... it’s something that we’ll definitely have to keep our eye on.”
Whether this is a short- or long-term trend has implications for the museum both in revenue and whether it continues robustly advertising up north.
“There are a lot of unknowns around it at the moment,” Rhinewald said, “but (it’s) something that continues to be almost a daily conversation.
