'Catastrophic': Canadian bookings for U.S. travel drop sharply

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/where-have-all-the-snowbirds-gone-canadians-cold-on-us-travel/

by mgh2 • 1 year ago

67 53 1 year ago

Would not want to travel to the US right now if I weren't already from here

Yeah even if you remove politics from the equation (which is impossible to actually do of course), I wouldn't travel to the US as an outsider just for the practical realities of the personal hardship it might cause, especially if you ever said a single negative thing about the current administration or Israel on social media or you happen to be brown and have tattoos.

(For context I am a US citizen living in the US, and terribly embarrassed to admit this because holy shit we've really dropped the ball)

zmgsabst4• 1 year ago

What’s the comparison?

stephenr• 1 year ago

Based on the news I've seen I'm not sure being from there is a good reason to travel there either.

throwaway657656• 1 year ago

US citizens may not want to travel internationally because they don't trust US customs and border agents upon their return.

About 20 years ago a customs agent asked me, "are you thanking the lord Jesus Christ that you have returned safely to America". You just tell them what they wanted to hear and you were fine. Now if I am not mistaken, they can demand you unlock your phone which might show you were at a Tesla Takedown rally, or purchased a movie ticket to No Other Land, or whatever else is deemed verboten. I am unclear how long a citizen can be detained/delayed by a customs agent without cause.

throwaway290• 1 year ago

Reminds me of this guy who had TTP revoked next day after he posted how US is becoming similar to PRC: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHwEjGazRKx

I thought why do you care, this is just a fast lane but your comment was enlightening... (I am sure based on other recent cases they would totally revoke his visa if he was not a citizen already)

praptak• 1 year ago

Being from there only means they can't deport you or deny entry indefinitely, right?

_nalply• 1 year ago

The thing is, you sound hopeful, which I think you should find worrying by itself.

To be explicit: You feel the chilling effect.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect) says:

[...] a chilling effect is the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction. A chilling effect may be caused by legal actions such as the passing of a law, the decision of a court, or the threat of a lawsuit; any legal action that would cause people to hesitate to exercise a legitimate right (freedom of speech or otherwise) for fear of legal repercussions.

In other words:

A chilling effect is when people are scared to use their rights because they fear legal trouble. This can happen because of new laws, court rulings, or threats of lawsuits. It makes people hesitate to do something they’re normally allowed to do.

You are wondering whether to go abroad. BOOM.

patagurbon2• 1 year ago

Multiple senior leaders in Trump’s White House, including old school republicans like Rubio have floated deporting American citizens to El Salvador. I would not want to be the person at the center of those court cases

Gibbon12• 1 year ago

I ain't leaving California any time soon either.

zeagle• 1 year ago

Trade dispute? Well that is one way to call it. The threats of annexation (to us, Greenland, Panama…) general disrespect, news of people being held at the border for days and then deported, all with ongoing support for the party doing this that ran on this platform is something is else.

zmgsabst4• 1 year ago

Is it really?

This seems a pretty obvious outcome of foreign allies constantly negging us for supporting their defense and international organizations taking advantage of the US while citizens are undermined at home.

Progressive managerialism failed to regulate its excesses — and this is what it looks like when that machinery breaks.

swarnie• 1 year ago

The US dictated the rules of the modern world and have seemingly been happy with them for the last 80 years.

Everyone is fine if you want a change, go back to your own country, stop trying to be World Police and focus on domestic issues for a few years. What we aren't happy about is the constant threats of invasion and subjugation.

buyucu2• 1 year ago

nobody is negging the us for supporting their defence.

libertine• 1 year ago

Nuclear proliferation is the way to go, hopefully Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Romania, Finland, Sweden, South Korea and Japan will be the first in this new age.

Denmark should consider it too asap.

mola• 1 year ago

Negging you? That was the US policy. Disarm your allies while promising to protect them.

Canada could've had nuclear weapons. You convinced them to not have it. Same with Ukraine and many more countries. Their fault was trusting the US to not become belligerent.

ggm3• 1 year ago

A 10 per cent drop in Canada-U.S. travel would risk 14,000 American job losses and US$2.1 billion in lost spending, the association estimates.

So it's a large-ish visible economic impact but probably distributed over the surface so not felt as an apex problem in ways which will strongly inform the US side of things.

If enough of it converts to domestic tourism there will be improvements in consumer spending also fairly widely distributed but the Canadian government may be more motivated to quantify this.

sanswork• 1 year ago

It wouldn't be that widely distributed the majority will be in Florida and Arizona if the snowbirds look elsewhere. Border cities used to cross border shopping trips will also be impacted. I would be surprised if the drop is that low too, just about every Canadian I know is avoiding travel south unless it's already been paid for.

ggm3• 1 year ago

The article quantifies the cost at 10% but the actual decline in flight is 70% so it's "do the maths" I doubt 70% will sustain but its certainly billions.

xenospn2• 1 year ago

If I’m the government of Mexico, I am taking this opportunity to go on a huge media blitz in Canada. Their tagline could be “Skip the US, literally”.

fulafel3• 1 year ago

The wider context seems missing: Rapid ramping down of fossil fuel based air travel is needed to mitigate the climate disaster.

TheSpiceIsLife2• 1 year ago

If we've got data, let's go with the data.

Aviation accounts for about 2.5% of global CO² emissions.

https://ourworldindata.org/global-aviation-emissions

Rapidly ramping down fossil fuel based air travel will have approximately no effect on climate.

fulafel3• 1 year ago

From your link: "Although CO2 gets most of the attention, it accounts for less than half of this warming. Two-thirds come from non-CO2 forcings." So it's much over 5%.

All of transport sector emissions makes up 20%. The other subsectors are decarbonising, but there's no tech solution in sight for air travel in the needed timeframe. And air travel is growing alarmingly quickly (doubled between 2006 and 2019).

All the individual slices of the pie we can tackle are pretty small, aviation is one of the bigger ones. We can't keep subdividing and then concluding for each one that it's too small to matter.

eesmith• 1 year ago

My single vote will have approximately no effect on the outcome.

That doesn't stop me from voting.

stop50• 1 year ago

Since don't spent a dime on transport & other things don't need to be transported the reduction is a bit higher.

ben_w• 1 year ago

While the percentage shows that aviation is not a *priority* for climate change, the required reductions in CO2 emissions for the climate to stabilise are around 99.9%, so aviation-induced emissions will have to come down at some point.

gbraad• 1 year ago

Same happens for Europeans; they do not want to travel to the US. Even some embassies call for caution, like Germany and the UK due to border/visa issues that happened.

ChrisArchitect• 1 year ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43485649

theGeatZhopa• 1 year ago

Stay at home. Don't by us. This is what me as a german will do.

I can't ditch goog or WhatsApp. The other apps I do not use. So, alternatives are less, but Europe will regulate it soon with TERIFFS tariffs so fearsome that you can't call them tariffs anymore, but rather terror-ifs. Tariffs on digital goods. Thank you Europe.

buyucu2• 1 year ago

I cancelled a business trip to the US and did virtual meeting instead. No way I'm going to a country that detains people on the border for no reason.

swat535• 1 year ago

I’m not dismissing the trade issue but I’d like to point out that the currency exchange rate is really bad right now, I’m not sure many Canadians can afford to travel these days. Our economy is not doing so hot with raising rents and grocery prices, people are struggling. I think there are multiple factors at play here but Trump’s rhetoric is certainly not helping.

'Catastrophic': Canadian bookings for U.S. travel drop sharply

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