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Travel statistics show that political discourse usually doesn’t have much impact on where people decide to go on vacation. This summer might prove to be an exception.

Canadians flocked to the United States last year: Statistics Canada reported a 4.8-per-cent increase in overnight trips to the United States, to 20.2 million trips, which reversed a three-year decline in the figure.

But experts say the harsh words coming from U.S. President Donald Trump on trade – combined with a backlash against his immigration policy, in which migrant children were being separated from their parents – are controversial enough that travel by Canadians to the United States may drop.

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The idea of Canadians boycotting traditional U.S. tourist destinations such as Las Vegas are gaining traction on social media.Julie Jacobson/The Canadian Press

Woodland Hunter, a 29-year-old Vancouver man, said he cancelled a three-day surfing trip to Oregon the day after the Group of Seven summit in Quebec. He was particularly put off when Peter Navarro, a top presidential adviser, said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deserved “a special place in hell” and accused him of trying to “stab [Mr. Trump] in the back on the way out the door” of the summit. (Mr. Navarro later apologized for his remarks.)

Mr. Hunter said he has noticed a lot of anti-Canadian sentiment in the comment sections of different U.S. news sites.

“I could picture a border guard, if they got their news from certain services, having some anti-Canada rhetoric,” Mr. Hunter said. “It’s not a good time to put your life in the hands of somebody at the border.“ He said he’ll surf in British Columbia instead.

Ambarish Chandra, a professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in cross-border travel, said the policy that resulted in so many families being separated at the border was unprecedented, and could have a tangible effect on travel trends.

“It’s quite likely to remind travellers of a high degree of uncertainty and authoritarianism at the border, and I think it may well put off travellers,” said Mr. Chandra, who is a U.S. citizen currently residing in Canada.

“Speaking personally, it puts me off as well.”

Travel numbers tend to fluctuate with currency exchange rates, and the prospect of a trade war with the United States has already had a negative effect on the Canadian dollar. In the past month, it has dropped from 78 US cents to just above 75 US cents.

“We don’t know how far this will keep going back and forth,” Mr. Chandra said, speaking of U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum and Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. metal, food and other products.

“If the Canadian dollar is worth less and it has lower buying power, then that will definitely affect travel, because it will be far more expensive to travel to the U.S.”

In Blind River, Ont., not far from the border with Michigan, 45-year-old Andrew Dresser said he cancelled a two-week family trip to Vermont and Maine immediately after seeing pictures of migrant children being separated from their families.

“That was the definitive thing for us, because we have kids in that age bracket,” Mr. Dresser said.

“That was the last straw. You want to insult us on trade or stealing running shoes, we can take that, but when we [saw] borderline racism, that was it.”

He said some of his friends in his community were also cancelling their trips to the United States.

Hashtags such as #BoycottUSA and #VacationCanada are getting some traction on social media, with users pledging to buy Canadian goods and travel to domestic destinations instead of in the United States. A recent Ipsos poll found that 70 per cent of Canadians say they will start looking for ways to avoid buying U.S.-made goods in response to the trade dispute, according to a Reuters report.

Mr. Trudeau weighed in on the issue of buying Canadian and travelling domestically, saying “if Canadians are looking for extra reasons to do so, so be it.

“I am always one to encourage Canadians to discover our extraordinary country, to take vacations here at home, to continue to buy Canadian,” Mr. Trudeau said on Wednesday.

“I think it is important for Canadians to make their own choices about how they want to spend their money.”

Dan Peltier, a tourism reporter at Skift, a travel research company, said he wouldn’t usually believe that politics could affect travel numbers, but said the boycott rhetoric on social media leads him to think there could be an impact this time.

“Any time the media is really covering the border, that makes people think about international travel,” Mr. Peltier said. “When people hear ‘border’ and they see something awful like this happening, it does make people worried.”

Skift found that visits to the United States dropped after the Trump administration’s ban on travel from certain Muslim-majority countries last year. The United States saw a 3.6-per-cent decline in international arrivals from January to August in 2017, which was the period in which the travel ban was dominating the headlines.

Joe D’Alessandro, president and chief executive of San Francisco Travel, the city’s convention and visitor’s bureau, said he was concerned that Canadians might be turned off by the idea of travelling to the United States, and pitched his city as a place that openly opposes the Trump administration.

“California is in somewhat of a unique position for those who are concerned about the Trump administration in the United States. California is sort of the centre of resistance,” Mr. D’Alessandro said.

“We need to do everything we can to let Canadians know that ‘Hey, we want you to come here,’” Mr. D’Alessandro said. “You’re our neighbours to the north, and our relationship will long endure what’s happening in Ottawa and Washington, D.C., today.”

With files from Daniel Leblanc

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