Main Street Lake Placid was quiet on Wednesday afternoon. (Enterprise photo — Grace McIntyre)

LAKE PLACID — George Daniels, owner of Keene Valley Lodge, received a nice letter in February from a long-time customer in Canada who canceled a five-night reservation in August. Daniels wrote back saying he understood.

This cancellation alone was a $1,400 hit to the business. Because the booking was during the peak season, Daniels was confident they would be able to rebook at least part of the stay, but he said that if cancellations started to affect the off-seasons, it would be harder to recover.

“We’re lucky that this was an August reservation,” he said. “But it shouldn’t happen at all.”

Businesses around Lake Placid and the broader High Peaks region are starting to see more signs of a Canadian tourism slump. Multiple owners reported a noticeable lack of Canadians on Main Street during March, a time when Lake Placid is often teeming with spring break travelers. While there are multiple economic reasons why Canadian travel might be down, local business owners and economic development leaders are concerned that this trend will turn into a real economic loss for the region.

The Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism has a robust in-house marketing department that tracks data about visitors to the region and website visits. CEO Dan Kelleher said there is still limited information about the big picture of what’s happening with Canadians in the market.

However, ROOST has seen web traffic from Canada decrease by 40%. Hotel revenue was 28% higher this January compared to last January — which Kelleher attributes at least in part to a better winter season with good snow and conditions. But this trend did not continue into February, which saw a decrease of 3.8% in aggregate hotel revenues. He attributes this to some Canadians not coming.

Kelleher said ROOST is more concerned about what he described as a 20% decline in retail spending, from both Americans and Canadians. This has been reported by ROOST’s retail partners around Lake Placid. He thinks some pre-booked trips are still happening, but Canadians seem to be spending less.

If Canadian tourism continues to decline, the Adirondack region could take a financial hit. In a good year, Kelleher said Canadians make up about 5% of spending in the region ROOST operates in, which includes Hamilton, Essex and Franklin counties. If only 20% is lost, the businesses in the area would see a decrease of $12 million in spending and counties would lose $580,000 in sales tax in a year.

Findings from a North Country Chamber of Commerce survey, which were released in a statement Wednesday, confirm a decrease in Canadian travel to the North Country region. Chamber of Commerce President Garry Douglas said in the statement that border crossings at the Champlain Port of Entry were down 16% in February.

In the survey, the chamber found that 66% of the surveyed businesses have already experienced a “slight to significant decrease in Canadian bookings for 2025.” About a quarter of businesses said they have adjusted staffing levels in response to the decline.

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Quiet streets and polite cancellations

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Marc Galvin, owner of The Bookstore Plus and current president of the Lake Placid Business Association, said he and other owners agree there seemed to be few Canadians around this March.

“The eyeball test — we usually see a ton of Ontario and Quebec plates in town especially in March when those breaks are going on,” he said. “And they just weren’t here.”

Galvin said he had a drop in sales in February, but he thinks this could be as much because of the pristine winter weather as anything else. Sometimes, people end up flocking to the shops when the weather gets too warm or rainy to be on the slopes.

The same goes for Kenny Boettger, founder of Placid Planet Bicycles. While they typically see much more action in the summer, he said there are some regular visitors from Canada that he hasn’t seen in a while. He often goes skiing on weekdays at Whiteface, and said he has been seeing fewer Canadians on the slopes and in the gondola.

“It’s far from scientific, but the numbers of Canadians that are there seems to be really off,” he said.

Boettger is not expecting a surge of Canadians in the summer. In general, he said consumer sentiment is wary and the Canadian dollar has been weaker for a while. He’ll be watching to see if the markets improve. Andrew Weibrecht, operations manager at Mirror Lake Inn, said Canadian travel took a hit after the pandemic, and they have only recently seen some recovery from that.

Mirror Lake Inn has also been receiving kindly written notes from Canadians explaining why they are still choosing to travel to the U.S., or why they are choosing not to. It’s pretty much a new phenomenon, Weibrecht said.

“We have had people who have reached out to us and said ‘We love coming to Lake Placid, but at this time we feel it doesn’t align with our values,'” he said. “People go out of their way to acknowledge what’s going on and either affirmatively or negatively say that they are coming or they are not coming.”

Daniels said about 15% of their business comes from Canada. Canadians are particularly helpful because they fill up the shoulder season — because so many of them live a short drive away, they will sometimes just check the weather and come down for a quick trip. Daniels wonders who else might be changing their minds about their trips without sending letters. This letter from a long-time client, however, speaks volumes for him.

“They love coming here, and they’re doing it strictly because of the rhetoric,” he said, referring to the specific reasons in the letter they received. “I figured this is just the symptom of what we’re missing out on.”

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All eyes on summer

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Kelleher and his colleagues at ROOST are keeping their eye on the numbers for this summer to see what the travel trends might be. He said spring bookings have been a bit lower than usual, but summer bookings are already a bit higher than last year.

Kelleher’s message to Canadians is that New York values the historic relationship with our northern neighbor, and they are always welcome.

“Here in the Adirondacks and the North Country at large, we’re hopeful that these terrific relations can continue for centuries to come,” he said. “We miss (Canadians). We know it’s not the right time to ask them to come, but when they’re ready, we’re excited to welcome them back.”