By Fred Kocher
There’s been a rebound of Canadian tourists across NH this summer. But new tariffs and words may have an effect on their visits this fall. Meanwhile, right along the border, there’s still cross-border neighborliness in the small New Hampshire and Canadian communities. Let’s look at both.
Fred Kocher
Up to now, there have been signs summer around the state that our Canadian neighbors are coming back into New Hampshire, albeit in small numbers and in groups after a few years of staying home. And that’s critical to New Hampshire’s economy.
Our neighbors in Canada are a major economic driver for year-round, cross-border tourism in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. It’s the state’s second-largest industry — $7.5 billion spending annually. They pulled back on travel across the border, at first during COVID, and now again last year due to rising costs, political frictions, and stricter border-crossing rules on both sides. But they’re crossing the border again, though not anywhere near what it was 10 years ago.
Cheryl Reardon, of the White Mountain Attractions Association says the rebound is a small bump, mostly from Quebec, and mainly visits to natural attractions and camp grounds rather than theme parks. Laura Lemieux of Settlers Green Outlets in North Conway has said they’ve seen an uptick in Canadian tourists, maybe 5% to 10%, especially from Sherbrook, which is a strong Canadian market, but nothing like the 35% of business that Canadian tourism represented back in 2015-16.
Tourism is critical to the White Mountains area with its tax-free shopping and family-oriented theme parks for visitors, such as Santa’s Village and Clark’s Bears. Summer is the biggest season for these businesses. Littleton is benefitting from Travel & Leisure Magazine’s listing it as one of the best main streets in the country with its shops and restaurants.
The upscale 114-room Lake Estate on Lake Winnisquam that opened last summer is getting attention by offering gas cards of up to $100 for overnight stays. Over on the seacoast, Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce Exec. John Nyhan has said they normally have 10% to 15% of their tourists coming into Hampton during the summer from Canada. This summer he’s been seeing a rebound.
The cost of travelling at the gasoline pump, for meals on the road and staying overnight is the major constraint on tourism. It’s causing an increase in day trips instead of overnights. Add the Trump Administration’s tariffs, much stricter border controls in both directions, and statements about Canada as a 51st state, it’s all had a chilling effect on the relationship between our two countries, and New Hampshire sees it in tourism numbers from our neighbor to the north —down 30% overall in 2025, but now rebounding in single digits in many parts of the State.
One fact about the rebound caught my attention: Younger Canadians are helping drive Canadian travel. Canadian research firm, Leger, reports that 65% of Canadians aged 18 to 34 planned to travel this summer, and are more interested than older Canadians in all destination types. Statistics Canada reports that Canadian return trips from the U.S. rose 1,.4% in April —the first year-over year increase since December of 2024, and driven more by car travel than air travel.
Leger also reports that Canadian citizens intending to travel within Canada rose to 77% last year and is up again this year with the push by Canadian leaders who have increased their promotions of domestic travel with road trip options, local culture, food festivals and family getaways in order to compete with U.S. & international options. Canadians are making conscious decisions about where they go and what they spend. We have that in common!
Canadian travel trends show up at the New Hampshire-Canada border. The numbers of Canadian passenger vehicles entering New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont were down about 105,000 vehicles in 2025 compared to the previous year — a 32% drop, based on U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. And they’re still down overall, but edging back up this summer. Fall foliage season with possible summer-like temps is next.
The U.S./Canada summer and year-round relationships aren’t just retail shops, theme parks and camp-grounds. They’re also in communities sitting right along both sides of the border where, as the publication Idyllic Pursuit puts it, “the rivers,parks and main streets sit within sight of inspection booths, and culture blends faster than paper-work — a shared neighborhood with two flags.”
Here’s how a leader in northern New Hampshire, puts it: “We have been good neighbors forever but things changed with COVID and now tariffs and some people saying things like making them our 51st state. Canadians are proud people and some have taken some of this personally, but in Northern NH, it is business as usual. We have family on both sides of the border, with a huge French-Canadian population.”
Those are the comments of executive director of the Northern New Hampshire Chamber of Commerce in Colebrook, Butch Ladd. He points to Champion Meadows Campground in Stewartstown, NH, which just had a family reunion in which there were more Canadian citizens than U.S. citizens.
This U.S./Canada border neighborliness extends to entire communities. Ladd says if there’s a fire in one of the small towns right along the border, on either side, “the border is alerted and fire trucks and personal vehicles are allowed to just go through to get to the fire. They do have to stop and report on the way back. It’s all about doing their job.”
He says coordination between the countries is handled by the Northern Borders Dispatch Center that covers 1,500 square miles and is one of the only international dispatch centers in the country.
The bottom line to New Hampshire’s relationship with Canada is not only tourism, families and border communities, it’s a mix of economic connections. Nearly all of the millions of dollars of petroleum and coal products imported into New Hampshire come from Canada, according to New Hampshire Employment Security. And Canada is the state’s number two export country for aircraft and spacecraft parts from hundreds of New Hampshire businesses.
Those realities, plus tourism and neighborliness, sent Gov. Ayotte and several business leaders to Canada last year to try and shore-up long-time New Hampshire
relationships with our neighbors — personal and business.
Time will tell if it works. Despite current constraints, and new tariffs, the history of our relationships over a couple centuries says it will work. Thought you might want to know.
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Fred Kocher’s is the host of NH’s Business on WMUR. He writes “It’s Worth Knowing” monthly for NH Business Review.
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