Baumgartner discusses the decline in international — and in particular, Canadian — tourism in Oregon.
The COVID pandemic was a cataclysmic event in the history of Oregon’s tourism industry. With national borders closed tight —and social distancing and stay-home restrictions in place —revenue in the sector dropped by around half between 2019 and 2020, and one in five tourism-related jobs were lost.
Since then, the industry has rebounded and stabilized, and for the past two to three years, the state has enjoyed an equitable spread of visitors around its various tourism regions (though Oregon’s cultural capital of Portland has yet to regain pre-2020 visitation numbers).
But with the COVID horror in the state’s rear-view mirror, Oregon’s tourism sector could now be headed for more trouble. This year, international visitors are staying away from the U.S., a problem being felt acutely in parts of the Pacific Northwest, according to Kate Baumgartner, an official with Travel Oregon. An increasing store of anecdotal and opinion research shows they’re motivated by tariffs and other policies of President Donald Trump, who rode to power on a wave of nativist, “America first” rhetoric.
With 72 employees and a biennial budget of $95 million (funded primarily by a statewide 1.5% transient lodging tax), Travel Oregon is a semi-autonomous state agency committed to promoting tourism to Oregon to potential visitors near and far. The agency gets much of its economic data and analysis from the firm Tourism Economics, Inc., which works with industry groups around the country.
Baumgartner spoke last week to Oregon Business about who’s staying away and who continues to visit Oregon.
This interview has been edited for space and clarity. (Disclosure: A separate division of Oregon Business’ parent company, MEDIAmerica, contracts with Travel Oregon to publish travel literature for the state.)
So international travel is down this year, and tourism spending, along with it. Is that correct?
According to our forecast from Tourism Economics, we’re expecting 82,000 fewer international visitors in Oregon compared to the visitation we saw in 2024. That’s a $51 million loss. And when we look at that specific to Canadian visitations, we’re expecting a 21% decline in visitation from Canadians in Oregon.
And that’s for all of 2025?
Yes.
I imagine the regions of Oregon aren’t all affected the same. Will some get hit a little harder?
What we’ve seen is that the coast is really feeling that loss from Canadians. There are some North Coast destinations that are really loved by Canadians. We’re certainly seeing that decline, and we’re certainly seeing a decline in Portland that I would say is above average.
Southern Oregon doesn’t seem to be feeling the Canadian loss as sharply, but they’re certainly still seeing a decline. And that may just be because it’s a longer drive. So for somebody from Canada to plan a trip there, it’s a specific choice instead of, you know, a quick weekend.
And what are you hearing from businesses — is this a lighter summer?
I think we’ve certainly heard that the Canadians are staying away, and certain businesses or certain communities are feeling that impact. I don’t know that people feel like the summer as a whole is really light. And it may be that we’re a few weeks out from people really being able to take a step back, with their kids back in school, and see how things really went this summer.
But certainly, we are hearing from people understanding that loss in international visitation, and I would say from our industry partners who do work with a bit more of a build out, whether that’s being at a trade show encouraging Canadians to come visit or folks who are doing tour groups around the state, I think that we’re certainly hearing that they’re feeling that impacted international decline.
How do you explain the decline in Canadian visitation?
We have an info@TravelOregon inbox, and anyone is welcome to reach out at any time. And we’ve heard from dozens of Canadians who let us know that they’ve canceled or chosen not to plan a trip that they were hoping to take this summer. And I would say that the sentiment there is absolutely a reaction to tariffs, to conversations around annexation and to the general rhetoric around Canada.
But I would also say that many of the emails that we’ve received, folks are going out of their way to say, “We love Oregon.” “We really wanted to come back to the Oregon coast but we’re not coming to the United States at all right now.”
So it does feel like it is a national impact that we’re maybe feeling more acutely here in Oregon.
Could this possibly be explained by a dip in tourism everywhere? What are we seeing globally?
That’s a good question. I don’t have hard data specific to that but I do know that nationally, there’s now a predicted decline in international visitation as a whole. And that’s driven by Canada, but there are other challenges with different countries making decisions, whether economic or more sentiment-based.
So how much does an international traveler spend when they come here?
It depends. For Canadian visitors — if it’s someone who’s taking a long weekend road trip from Vancouver, or someone who’s flying in from Calgary, their experience might be different.
International visitors as a whole — not just Canadian visitors — are much more likely to stay longer when they come. And they spend more money than someone who’s coming up from San Francisco for a quick weekend or something like that. And they’re certainly more likely to travel around the state and have a kind of comprehensive experience than to just be in one place and get in and get out.
And so the other side of this is domestic travel. What do we know about the people who travel here from within the U.S.? Where do they come from? What do they do?
Our economic impact report from 2024 shows that about 36% of visitor spending in Oregon comes from Oregonians. We love our state. There’s so much to do. I can think of five trips my family and I have taken over the last few months, to experience different offerings in Oregon. So we know that people love to spend time in Oregon and see different parts of the state.
When we look at sort of the domestic market more broadly, some of our major markets are Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Spokane, Boise — kind of those other large or medium-sized West Coast cities that have easy connectivity into Oregon. But then I would say in the summer, we certainly see more interest from Texans and Arizona — folks looking to escape the heat and knowing the really beautiful climate that we have up here, as well.
I’ve heard you say that these losses will be difficult to make up. Why?
What Tourism Economics has said is for Canadians, specifically, they’re not expecting us to regain 2024 visitor levels until 2030.
And we’ve certainly received emails from folks who are saying they’re not coming here for four years. And I think some of those comments around “four years” are also influencing that 2030 number that our forecasters provided.
And likewise, with our marketing and development efforts, we do things like host travel writers and journalists. And they have told us there’s just not any interest from their readership in trips to the US right now. So think about this as a development pipeline: If journalists don’t come for a couple years, they won’t publish stories, and no one will read those stories and get inspired to plan a trip for the next summer. So there’s a long tail to the work that we do.
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