This Professor Explains Why Canadian Tourists Likely Won't Return Even After Trump Leaves

Okay, so I made it pretty clear in my last few videos that with a slight increase in April, the US media is running with it.If you're not sure what I mean, let me show you.

It is showing some promise with 45 ,000 visitors coming through.So far, we're seeing that.

But there is some indication of a bounce back.These are the numbers for the last three Aprils.You'll see 178 million border crossings into Vermont in 2024.That dipped to 126 million in 2025.This year, we're seeing a slight rebound up to 140 million.

I think you understand what I mean now, right?I mean, the slightest increase and they think everything's over now.I mean, it's not just the TV media.I mean, look at these headlines.This one's from National Post.It's Canada's boycott of the US travel thawing.

April data shows a surprising trend.Now, keep in mind this is from National Post and none of us Canadians should be surprised by this post media BS.But you know what this reminds me of?It's like cutting out a psycho ex out of your life and hitting the like button on a photo that, like, you were mutually in.And then the psycho ex thinking everything's back to normal.For the record, this is not a true story.

But many of us in the GTL community, we're done with the United States.No matter what the media says.And I'm only showing the PG -13 comments.I mean, some of you guys, yeah, you're pretty pissed off.But I'm not the best at fundamentally explaining why this is different than any other situation in the past.So in this video, I brought some backup.

And we're going to hear from Professor Wayne Smith from the Toronto Metropolitan University.You may recognize him from some of his interviews with CBC, CTV, or on the radio with CBC's Matt Galloway.So I'm going to let him explain why this change in our travel habits is not going to break anytime soon.I'll hand it over now to Wayne Smith.

Well, hello, GTL crowd.Today, Professor Chris and I were talking about in the Discord server.He said we were talking about the videos, the last few videos GTL has done, and a lot of it has to do with customer feedback.customer loyalty.And he suggested, and since I'm a good academic, I will always cite my sources.Prof Chris says you should do something called Wayne Explains.

And so this is what we're going to do today.I'm going to explain a little bit about customer service and what's kind of going on in the marketplace as a result.All relationships, especially in relation in service.So once again, if I buy a pair of sunglasses, right and I can take the sunglasses out and I can do all kinds of stuff and I can do go like this I can try them on if they don't work or they don't I don't like them afterwards I can return them to a store but a trip I can't do that with so it creates a different type of risk in behaving so when I buy my sunglasses there's a little risk involved.Because if I don't like them, if they break, if they don't work the way I want them to do, I can take them back to the store and get my money back.So that reduces the risk.

Well, when you go on a trip, there's a huge risk factor because you're dropping a lot of not just your valuable time or your valuable money, but also your time and your vacation time and your travel time is something that's really, really important to you.So a lot of travel at its heart has to do with the idea of feeling safe and secure and trust that you're going to get delivered what is being promised to you from a destination.And just make sure that you have to have, you have to feel like that place.So not just know, but you have to feel like you're going to be taken care of if something goes wrong.And what we've seen in the States is this idea that Oh, we can look at your stuff at the border.We can see ice.

We could see we have these geopolitical situations.And what that's doing is basically breaking the idea of this benevolence.We were looking at the U .S.as a safe, secure destination, as a place where we could go and get what was promised was going to get delivered to us.But that benevolence is now broken.

And because of that, we now see traveling to the U .S.as being increasingly risky.And this makes us not want to go.We are amazingly consistent creatures.Mess up someone's morning routine and see how grumpy they are the rest of the day.

Take someone's phone and move their apps around on their phone and see how frustrated they get with you.We like consistency.We'd like to know that when we do something, this is what's going to occur.This is why we buy the same brands all the time.The idea of brand is I'm buying something and I'm mitigating my risk and I'm trusting that this brand is going to deliver exactly what I want every single time.It's the consistency is what builds a trust.

The problem is, is that the US has now broken that trust.and they've broken the patterns that we have, and it's causing us to delete the routines, what we call deleting the routines.What will happen here is this idea of the boycott, we used to go, if you're in Quebec, you used to go to...You don't want a beach in Virginia somewhere every year or Maryland or wherever you want to go.But that was your habit.You just did it.

It was the thing.Me would maybe shopping down to Buffalo and go see a Bill's game or a Sabre's game or whatever going on there.Or GTL's case going down to Blaine and picking up his packages and things like that.We used to do these things without even thinking about them because it was normal.It was part of our routine.It was safe.

It was secure.We knew exactly what we were going to get when we did it.And so we...it.It was easy and convenient for us and it fulfilled our needs.However, we're now getting to the part where we're now deleting that routine because we don't feel like it's going to fulfill our needs.

We're not feeling safe.We're not feeling secure going down across the border.And because of that, we're finding alternatives.And when you find alternatives, that creates a whole lot of problems for destination marketing organizations.The erosion of the safe haven that creates this idea of, well, I used to go to Buffalo every time, what can I do now if I don't feel safe?So now I'm going to build this whole idea of new routines.

I'm going to build, okay, I'm going to go to Ottawa instead, and I'm going to enjoy my time in Ottawa, or I'm going to go to Muskoka, or I'm going to go somewhere else.And you start building new routines.The snowbirds, Well, where are they going?Oh, I don't want to go to Florida.I don't want to go to Arizona because I feel nervous.There's new laws.

There's all kinds of things going on.So I'm going to go down to Mexico.And if they have a really good time in Mexico, or I'm going to go to Portugal, and if they have a really good time in Portugal, they're going to establish new routines and new ideas.And those are going to be really, really difficult from a consumer perspective to get back those customers.We've seen domestic tourism Canada really grow.We've seen travel to Mexico and the Caribbean really grow.

We've seen the European summer holidays growing on a regular basis.And what we've seen is we've seen Canadians establishing new travel routines.And the thing that really scares the U .S.is that our boycott behavior is now spreading across the world.This idea of not feeling safe, not feeling secure, not feeling wanted.

These are all things that are going to be, not just can't be solved in six months.This is going to take almost generations because we've broken our habits.We've broken our regular brand loyalty to the U .S.So now we have found alternatives and we're going to be, as long as we're happy with the alternatives, we're going to keep doing it.And this is something that is going to take a long time for the U .

S.to get back, even if they right side stuff.So the idea of this is we have to think about this a little bit here.Think about you're losing potentially about 8 .5 billion U .S.dollars in lost visitation.

That's a lot of money.That's a lot of jobs.That's a lot of people who are going to be negatively hurt by this.And the destination marketing organizations, what do they know?Well, we can do more advertising.We could do at par sales, but that's not the problem.

The problem is that there's a problem of safety and security.People don't feel good about going to the States.They don't align with us politically anymore.They don't align with our values in a lot of ways.We don't feel safe that they're going to look through all of our stuff going over the border.We don't feel safe that once we're down there, ICE couldn't do something to us.

We don't feel like we could support a government that's not supporting aligning with our values.You put that all together and they've done everything possible to kill the tourism industry because tourism at its heart is a safety and security industry.And they've forgotten that.So how do they create a new sense of safety and security?Well, you have to change policy.You have to establish that when you change policies, that attitudes are actually changed, that you're following the new policies.

that people are going to be welcoming and you're going to establish a consistent level of, okay, we're back to sanity.And until that happens, we ain't coming back, at least not in big numbers.So I've kind of come to the end here, but, oh yeah, I forgot.We always have to end with a happy note.Oh, someone in the comments last time called the stately way manner.I'm not quite sure that works, but if 500 square foot is daily, go for it.

Um, but my name, first name is definitely not Bruce.Um, but the second thing, Oh, happy note.I really liked the cat.GTL's cat is really good.And I love when she shares her opinion with the world.It's really insightful.

So with that back to you, GTL, you know, Wayne, the happy thing at the end of the article or end of the report, it only works for us reports, because in my opinion, this whole thing that you just did right now is a positive for Canada.And it's also a great reminder that we have to ignore the media when they say things might be turning around.Because one thing the US media isn't factoring in, it's our habits have changed.And there's not a single thing anyone in the United States can do to change your minds.It's gonna be up to us if we want to change your mind.So I want to thank you Wayne for helping to share this with the community and explaining it more on an academic level.

I swear if I was sitting in your classroom right now, I would actually be paying attention.Not like what I was doing in my like early 2000s.As for the co -host, she's here, but kind of passed out right now.I guess she decided she's on a bit of a break.But to add on to what Wayne said, it's really about our habits.I mean, you gotta ask yourself right now, for anyone that rearranged their travel plans in 2025 or even up till now, did you have fun in your new destination?

Did you have fun exploring a new city or a country that you'd never been to before?Or if you're Canadian and you stayed within Canada, did you enjoy exploring a part of Canada that you've never been to before?You see, we have just over two and a half years more of breaking this habit.And the longer it goes on, the more we're going to forget about the United States.So my best advice is just to basically ignore what's coming out of the U .S.

media.Don't fall for the narrative that things are going to be turning around when it comes to the boycott.And I bring this up because I had a few people email me and ask, do you think this is going to be the bottom?Do you think it's going to turn around?Well, my answer to that, nothing has fundamentally changed.In Canada and the rest of the world, we just got to continue doing our own thing.

To close off this video, I would like to thank Fiery1 from our Discord server for posting this photo from the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia.And Fiery1, thank you for sharing this with the community.Alright everyone, that's it for this video.If you found any value in anything I said today, or actually Wayne said today, and you want to hear more from a Canadian and international point of view, without the US media bias, make sure you hit that like and subscribe button below.That way you'll be notified of my future videos.And don't forget to hit the bell icon and select all as well.

And if you want to see more of my videos, check out the ones that are going to show up on your screen shortly.Thanks everyone, I'll catch you in the next one.