ACTA: Impact of U.S. Tariffs on Canada’s Travel Industry Will Be Worse Than Pandemic

ORLANDO — The potential impact of U.S. tariffs on the Canadian travel industry could be greater than the pandemic, one of the worst times in history for Canada’s travel trade.

That’s according to Wendy Paradis, president of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies (ACTA), who spoke in Orlando during this week’s Travel Market conference.

After months of talks and turns, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the official order on Tuesday, doubling tariffs to 50% on steel and aluminum imports. The move will most impact Canada, which exports the most steel by shipment volume to the U.S.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his office was engaged in negotiations for the removal of the tariffs, and the country is reportedly planning reprisals, but there still remains a high level of uncertainty on how long the impact will last, and how great it will be.

Paradis said on stage that tariffs and the potential impact of an ongoing trade war were “unfortunately the largest issue for Canadian travel agencies and advisors.”

“What’s really important for everyone to know is the current tariffs as they are today, should they stay in place, the impact on Ontario and Quebec, the largest travel industry provinces in Canada, is much worse than the pandemic,” she said.

That’s because travel is often the first industry to be impacted, and the last to fully recover, when an economic issue arises. And, because of how integrated Canada’s economy is with the U.S., a breaking of those ties would be a significantly negative economic event.

“For travelers to travel, they need to have jobs and they need to have disposable income to travel,” she said. “We would be impacted because of the impact on jobs and disposable income.”

For those new to the industry in Canada, even in 2023, three years after the pandemic, ACTA found that two-thirds of agencies that survived weren’t confident they would be able to pay back pandemic-related loans, and  36% believed it was likely or somewhat likely that they would close within three years.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty around the tariffs and how long they will stay in place. The impact will likely be felt differently by different advisors depending on the demographics they serve, Paradis said. Those serving boomers, for instance — the largest traveler group in Canada and one that largely has mortgages paid off and are empty nesters — would be less impacted. Those serving younger generations would be more impacted.

Still, Paradis promised that ACTA will continue to advocate for its members in the face of the tariffs.

“As travel advisors and agencies focus on what you do best… at ACTA, we are behind the scenes making sure we’ve got your back and removing as many barriers as possible,” she said.