Why Canadians Are Staying Away From Las Vegas

By late 2025, the warning signs were impossible to miss.

On the Las Vegas Strip, blackjack tables that once filled within minutes sat half-empty. Slot machines blinked idly. Hotel lobbies, designed to funnel crowds shoulder to shoulder, echoed with footsteps. At Harry Reid International Airport, passenger volumes fell again, marking another month in what had become a troubling pattern.

Las Vegas, a city built on the assumption that visitors will always come back, is confronting an unfamiliar reality: tourists are staying away, and Canadians, once among its most reliable customers, are leading the retreat.

According to airport data, passenger traffic declined 9.6 percent in November 2025 compared with a year earlier, following an 8.2 percent drop in October. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) reported that overall visitation was down 7.6 percent year over year through October. Hotel occupancy slid to 76.1 percent in July, roughly six percentage points below the previous year, while average room rates fell as resorts scrambled to fill beds.

By itself, a single weak month might be dismissed as noise. But this downturn has persisted for nearly a year. Analysts at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas project that the city will host about 39.1 million visitors in 2025, down from roughly 41.6 million in 2024, a shortfall of about 2.5 million people.

A significant share of those missing visitors, officials and economists say, are Canadians.

From Torrent to Drip

Canada has long been Las Vegas’s largest international market. In 2024, Canadians accounted for roughly 28 percent of foreign tourists to the United States, according to industry estimates. In 2025, that share dropped sharply, contributing to what tourism analysts describe as a multibillion-dollar hit to the U.S. economy.

Mayor Shelley Berkley put it bluntly in an interview with PBS NewsHour: Canadian tourism has gone “from a torrent to a drip.”

Airline data reinforce the picture. Air Canada reported passenger volumes to U.S. destinations down more than 30 percent year over year during peak summer months. WestJet posted similar declines, while the low-cost carrier Flair said traffic to the United States fell by more than half. At Harry Reid International, WestJet arrivals alone were down more than 30 percent by October.

Travel agents on both sides of the border say the shift is not simply about prices or schedules. Wendy Hart, who books trips for clients in Windsor, Ontario, told reporters that politics had become a decisive factor. After President Trump repeatedly floated the idea of Canada becoming the “51st state,” she said, many clients decided to make a point by staying away.

Trade Wars and Travel Choices

The decline accelerated early in 2025, around the same time the Trump administration expanded tariffs on Canadian products. The response from Ottawa was swift. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Canadians to spend domestically and reconsider vacations in the United States.

“Now is the time to choose Canada,” Mr. Trudeau said in a nationally televised address, encouraging families to explore domestic parks, cities and cultural sites instead of traveling south.

Canadians listened. Statistics Canada reported that return trips by car from the United States fell more than 38 percent in May compared with a year earlier. By August, the number of Canadians returning by automobile had dropped nearly 34 percent year over year. Air travel showed similar weakness.

The economic consequences extend well beyond Nevada. A report by the Democratic minority of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress found that Canadian tourism supported about $20.5 billion in U.S. economic activity in 2024 and roughly 140,000 jobs nationwide.

In Las Vegas alone, economists at UNLV estimate Canadian visitors supported approximately 43,000 jobs and contributed $3.6 billion annually to the local economy. Those dollars are now missing.

Casino Executives Take Notice

The Strip’s largest operators are no longer downplaying the issue. On a recent earnings call, MGM Resorts International’s chief executive, Bill Hornbuckle, acknowledged that Canadian visitation began falling earlier in the year and had not rebounded.

“International visitation has been an issue, particularly earlier in the year with Canada,” Mr. Hornbuckle said, noting declines even during major events like hockey games at T-Mobile Arena, partly owned by MGM.

Caesars Entertainment’s chief executive, Thomas Reeg, cited reduced Canadian travel as one factor behind weaker-than-expected quarterly results. When companies that own Bellagio, Caesars Palace and the Cosmopolitan start pointing to geopolitics, the signal is hard to ignore.

More Than Politics

Still, tariffs and rhetoric are only part of the story. Domestic travelers are also pulling back, squeezed by inflation and rising costs. Steve Hill, president and chief executive of the LVCVA, said Americans are increasingly choosing to stay home to stretch their budgets.

Federal policy has compounded the problem for international visitors beyond Canada and Mexico. New and proposed visa fees mean that a family of four from a non–visa waiver country could face more than $1,000 in entry costs before booking flights or hotels. Lengthy processing times add another deterrent.

“These are real barriers,” Mr. Hill said, “and they absolutely affect demand.”

Las Vegas has responded with aggressive discounts. Resorts have offered free parking, waived resort fees for locals, loyalty bonuses and discounted attractions. Average Strip room rates fell to about $165 in July, down from $170 a year earlier, while downtown rooms dropped below $90.

Prices are falling, economists note, because demand has weakened.

Workers Feel the Pain

For hospitality workers, the slowdown is no abstraction. Diana Valles, president of Culinary Workers Union Local 226, said fear of immigration enforcement has spread among immigrant employees, while reduced visitor numbers translate directly into fewer shifts.

Larry Turner, a utility porter at the Four Queens, said hours have been cut and layoffs are no longer rare. Tourism employs more than one in five workers in the Las Vegas region. When visitors disappear, the effects ripple quickly.

A Longer Arc

Some economists argue that the current slump exposes deeper structural issues. David Schmidt, chief economist at Nevada’s Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, has noted that casino employment in Las Vegas peaked in 2006 and again just before the pandemic.

From this perspective, trade disputes and political tensions did not create the problem so much as accelerate it.

Las Vegas rebounded spectacularly after Covid-19. In 2022, visitor-related economic output reached a record $79.3 billion, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. But the recovery masked vulnerabilities: rising prices, heavier reliance on high-end visitors and increased competition from cheaper destinations.

An Uncertain Path Forward

On the American Automobile Association’s list of top Labor Day destinations, Las Vegas slipped to last place in 2025, down from sixth the year before. It was a symbolic moment for a city accustomed to topping such rankings.

Whether Canadian tourists will return in large numbers remains an open question. De-escalation on trade and rhetoric could help, analysts say, but habits may have already shifted. Canadians who rediscovered domestic travel may not rush back, even if relations improve.

For now, the numbers tell a stark story: empty tables, quieter airports and a tourism engine running well below capacity. The city that sells spectacle is confronting a sobering challenge, one that cannot be solved by discounts alone.

Las Vegas has reinvented itself before. The question is whether it can do so again, and whether its leaders are willing to confront the causes of a decline that stretches beyond a single administration, or even a single border.