ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – A bitter trade war with Canada, combined with new immigration policies, has some countries outside the United States warning their citizens about traveling to North America.
Now, some are questioning whether this will impact tourism in America’s oldest city.
St. Augustine is known around the world for its beauty and charm, which have always made it a vacation destination for natives and visitors.
Recently, the governments in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, and Finland have issued travel advisories about traveling to the U.S. The advisories warn of possible detention if there is something wrong with their passport or Visa after several travelers were detained. Finland is warning its people about a crackdown on transgender rights.
News4JAX spoke with Susan Phillips, the CEO of the St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra, and the Beaches Visitors and Convention Bureau. Phillips was one of hundreds of people across the globe representing the hospitality industry at a travel conference in Savannah, Georgia.
“We have a lot of folks come here from the UK, France, and Germany, and those folks are probably thinking about their travel plans. We’re having to really pay close attention, and we know politics are at play here,” Phillips said.
An overwhelming majority of international visitors to St. Augustine are from Canada, which is why Phillips and her staff are closely monitoring what happens.
In May, Air Canada was supposed to start direct flights between Jacksonville and Toronto, but that service could be in jeopardy after the airline said it was reducing flights to Florida, Las Vegas, and Arizona. United Airlines also announced it will reduce services between the U.S. and Canada because of an anticipated decrease in Canadians traveling to the U.S. for vacation.
“The airlines will be paying close attention to this and watching to see which markets they might want to pull from and which markets to temporarily pause, so we’re going to keep a close eye on that as well,” Phillips said.
According to Flight Centre Travelling Group, which is one of the largest travel agencies in the world with offices in Canada, bookings for trips to the U.S. fell by 40% last month. The group also said one in five Canadian customers have been cancelling trips to the U.S. and booking flights to Mexico and the Caribbean.
“We don’t know what they’re going to do. This is rapidly unfolding with a lot of media coverage and a lot of scrutiny, but we’re not sure what it’s going to mean to us,” Phillips said before talking about being more strategic when it comes to spending money on advertising.
“If the appetite for travel to the U.S. changes over the next few weeks, then we’re going to have to make changes to our advertising, so we may not be advertising in Canada. We may, instead, be advertising closer in, like the West Coast, California, and the Midwest, versus taking those dollars and focusing on Canada or the UK.”
Phillips said it’s too early to tell how this will impact St. Augustine tourism. She’s hoping the impacts, if any, don’t lead to hospitality job loss in the nation’s oldest city.