'We miss our Canadian friends': Trump's threats to Canada hit Las Vegas | CNN Business

Las Vegas casino magnate Derek Stevens is getting desperate to win back a crucial customer base: Canadians.

Stevens has marketed to Canadian tourists for years, but many are avoiding travel to America in protest of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to make Canada the country’s 51st state. Canadian visitors to Stevens’ Vegas properties — including the Circa, Golden Gate, The D and BarCanada, which offers themed drinks like “Slap Shot” — have dropped by about 40% in the last year.

So Stevens is launching a new promotion to entice Canadians. His casinos will accept Canadian loonies “one to one” with the US dollar through August, more than a 30% discount based on current exchange rates.

“We miss our Canadian friends,” said Stevens, who grew up in Michigan, two miles from the Canadian border. “They fill up a lot of hotel rooms. A lot of meals don’t get served without them.”

Some 24% fewer Canadians visited Las Vegas overall last year. In response to this lack of demand, Canadian airlines cut flights, driving the number of seats on planes from Canada to Las Vegas to its lowest point in two decades.

“If you get called the 51st state, you’re going to go spend your money in the Bahamas,” Stevens said.

Canada is the largest source of international tourism to Las Vegas, and the decline of these tourists is a significant blow to the city. Roughly 1.5 million visitors from Canada head to Las Vegas each year, and they typically stay longer and spend more at casinos and hotels than US tourists. The dropoff in 2025 contributed to Las’ Vegas largest overall decline in tourists in 50 years outside the pandemic.

Canadians’ absence in Las Vegas is symbolic of the United States’ fractured relationship with its neighbor and the ripple effects of unwinding ties between the two countries.

Like Stevens, leaders in Las Vegas are searching for ways to win back Canadians.

Casino operators and tourism officials have traveled North to reassure Canadian leaders, Las Vegas’ mayor publicly begged** **them to return last year and Las Vegas’ tourism bureau is stepping up advertising in major Canadian markets.

US congressional members from Nevada this month introduced the “Tourism Resiliency Act” to create a working group with Canada and Mexico to improve tourism between the countries.

Canadian boycotts

Las Vegas is just one of many places in the United States struggling with fewer Canadians.

Los Angeles, New York City and Seattle are each reporting roughly** **20% drops in visitors. Businesses in border towns like Buffalo and Bellingham, Washington, are withering. And Canadian snowbirds are selling their homes in the Sun Belt.

Fluctuating currency exchange rates have long kept some Canadians away from the United States. But Canadians are now actively boycotting America because they are “not treated like an ally,” said Martin Firestone, the president of a Canadian travel insurance company.

Instead, Canadians last year took more trips within their own country and overseas to Japan, Spain and Mexico, according to data from the Canadian government.

Casinos in Canada also saw a bump in visitors.

Vancouver to Las Vegas

The Trump administration’s approach has upended the Canada-to-Las Vegas pipeline, which grew from careful policy decisions and marketing strategies over decades.

Canadians first began going to Las Vegas around the 1950s, hopping on air junkets organized by Las Vegas casinos to entice high rollers, Firestone said. Casinos chartered flights and paid for room and food expenses for VIP gamblers with the expectation they would bet big.

“Junkets became the hottest thing there was. Canada jumped on it,” he said.

Soon, Canadian tourists and snowbirds joined the high rollers. Short flights, warm weather, golf, and entertainment made Las Vegas an attractive destination for Canadians.

“Don’t be surprised if you spot new neighbors indulging in round bacon, maple candies and Labatt Blue,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal said in 2012.

Canada also became the largest foreign investor and employer in Nevada, thanks to low taxes, large pool of service workers and proximity to California, said Richard Perkins, a former state lawmaker who founded the Business Council of Canada and Nevada, a nonprofit to promote trade and investment.

Hockey, Canada’s national pastime, has also brought in visitors since Las Vegas was awarded a National Hockey League expansion team in 2016. The league believed Las Vegas made sense as a hockey market in part because it expected Canadian tourists to fill the seats.

The Vegas Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup final in their first season and turned Las Vegas into “hockeytown.”

‘Everything is going backwards’

The sharp drop in Canadian tourism has also hit workers and Las Vegas’ tourist-dependent economy. Las Vegas has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Cristhian Barneond, a cook at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas’ casino buffet, wakes up at 6 a.m. every day and waits to see if the Cosmo will call him for work. But the casino needs him less and less as tourism slows down.

“If they don’t call by 8 a.m., that means no work,” he said.

Barneond, who is from Guatemala, has worked in Las Vegas’ casino industry for nine years and is also a shop steward for the powerful Culinary Union in the state. The middle-class job allowed him and his wife to purchase a home in the city.

He landed work as an on-call cook** at the Cosmo **after he lost his full-time job at another casino on the Strip in August. Cooks are usually in high demand in Las Vegas, but he is only getting two or three days a week at the Cosmo.

To help pay the bills, Barneond took a second job at a clothing store at a mall for $13 an hour. But his hours at the store have dwindled too.

He is hunting for deals on groceries, selling extra stuff on Facebook, and pampering his three rescue dogs and one cat a little less.

“Everything is going backwards now,” he said.

CNN’s Paula Newton contributed to this report.