Santa Cruz sees a dip in summer tourism – blame politics

It’s a lovely summer afternoon on the Santa Cruz Wharf, sunny and warm, a light breeze blowing in off the ocean, the Beach Boardwalk glimmering across the water in the middle distance. It’s a jewel of a day, the kind that many locals tend to take for granted.

But the sidewalk on the wharf is sparse, empty parking spaces abundant. A few people enjoy craft beers at Humble Sea’s beer garden on the wharf, but they’re mostly locals. The gift shops, the boat rental places, the restaurants, the candy store — they’re essentially vacant of customers. It’s an eerie echo of the pandemic summer five years ago.

Where are all the tourists?

To be fair, this beautiful summer day is past Labor Day, and traditionally in Santa Cruz, that means an ebb in the flow of tourists in town. But the summer of 2025 is not like summers of the past. Of course, if you suspect that the volatile political situation in Washington is having a negative effect on international tourism and that effect is being felt in Santa Cruz, the data bears that out. But locals in the travel business are bullish on tourism generally and, they said, the downturn doesn’t rise to the level of crisis. 

Rarely if ever has American presidential politics played such a prominent and direct role in whether or not travelers visit popular tourist destinations. Earlier this year, Donald Trump, newly reelected, swiftly turned America’s closest and most dependable international relationship into a kind of cold war, insulting Canada with boorish comments that it should be America’s 51st state. Canadians responded largely by refusing to visit the United States. More broadly, Trump’s weaponizing of the Department of Homeland Security in the name of cracking down on immigration has caused a slump across the board in the tourist industry. A dramatic increase in tariffs and reports of even green-card and legal visa holders being detained in the U.S. has not played well with foreigners who might otherwise visit. According to a study by the World Travel & Tourism Council, international travel is actually booming all over the world — except in the U.S. 

On the ground in Santa Cruz, an emerging consensus on the summer is that, yes, tourism is down. But that drop is not dramatic. In an informal survey of businesses in downtown Santa Cruz and on the wharf, I heard time and time again a variation of what one business owner told me: “The summer was OK, but not quite as robust as last year.” 

Visit Santa Cruz County, the county’s tourism board, reported that revenues in local hotels dropped by about 4.7% for the summer. (Statistics are through only July 31; numbers for August have not yet been reported.) That drop was offset, however, by an increase in the short-term rental market, making for a mixed bag for the tourism season.

Terence Concannon, the CEO of Visit Santa Cruz County, said that among the various factors at play in determining the character of the 2025 tourist season, one stands out clearly: Canadians, in particular, are staying away.

“We have seen — and California itself has seen — a dramatic decrease in visitation from Canada,” he said. “I think that has mellowed a bit [since the beginning of the year]; we do have more Canadian visitors coming, but overall the research says that it’s down.”

A state forecast, released before the summer season began, estimated a 9.2% drop in international tourism. 

Earlier this year, at the height of the Trump-inspired feud between the Canadian and U.S. governments, VSSC — which is preparing to open a new visitors center next to the Museum of Art & History on Front Street by the end of September — conducted what Concannon calls the “Canada test,” which was a series of social media posts aimed at potential Canadian visitors, pushing Santa Cruz County specifically as an ideal travel destination.

“The response was overwhelming — actually, not overwhelming. It was 100% negative,” said Concannon. “‘We’re not coming. We love California, but this year, we’re not coming.’ And that’s what I presented to our board, to let them know what we’re up against.”

Christina Glynn, VSSC’s director of communications, also had conversations with representatives from Canada’s tourism press: “They said their editors are not doing any stories about the U.S. for the rest of the country, in Canada.”

On the other hand, Canada is only second in rank among international visitors to California. At the top of that list in Mexico. And Mexican visitors, said Concannon, are not staying away.

“Earlier this year, at a Visit California event,” he said, “we were able to listen to the heads of the Mexico office of Visit California speak to us, and they said Mexicans are going to continue to come here, that ‘we’re used to this kind of [anti-immigrant] rhetoric, and we’re not afraid to come to the United States.’”

By contrast, said Concannon, Canadian officials told representatives of Visit California that Canadians’ anger at the Trump administration has turned into a new appreciation for their own country. “What we heard was, ‘Y’know for the first time in my lifetime in Canada, we’re patriotic now, and we’re Canada first.’”

Still, the percentage of visitors from Canada, Mexico and overseas is a small percentage in the overall picture, which is dominated by domestic visitors, especially visitors from the greater Bay Area and other parts of Northern California. And that sector, according to VSSC, continues to be robust. 

Of the numbers that indicate that local hotel occupancy is down at the same time that short-term rentals are up, Concannon has this interpretation: “It says to me that people are possibly staying longer, maybe bringing more people with them. People obviously want to have a more affordable experience. So, if you’re bringing five or six adults with you, you’re going to want to stay in a vacation rental rather than rent two or three rooms [at local hotels].”

The summer season in local tourism is, however, not quite over. As I visited merchants downtown, Tim Frankel, co-owner of Avatar, which sells imported apparel and gifts, told me that historically, international tourists will often visit Santa Cruz in September and October, creating a kind of mini tourist boom post-Labor Day. Other business owners and retail employees I spoke to confirmed the late summer flow of out-of-country visitors in past years, and the relative lack of such tourists so far this year. (Some of that in-flow might come from families of UC Santa Cruz students helping with the move-in.)

But, said Frankel, gesturing to the relatively sparse window shoppers on Pacific Avenue, “Where are the Europeans this year?”

Whatever the final numbers of international visitors in 2025 might be, out-of-country visitation could look dramatically different in 2026. The U.S. will host the globally popular FIFA World Cup, with more than two weeks of crucial games taking place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara in June. VSSC is already working on strategies to lure World Cup fans over Highway 17 to Santa Cruz County. 

Santa Cruz will also have a new luxury hotel on the scene with the opening of La Bahia. Additionally, next year’s Super Bowl is also happening at Levi’s, and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics could even have some ripple effects for tourism in Northern California — though the volatile politics of the Trump administration remain a wild card. Still, said VSSC’s Concannon, despite that unpredictability, those who keep a tight watch on tourism in Santa Cruz County and in California generally are not panicking over what they consider a lull in an otherwise robust post-pandemic period in tourism.

“We’re just a bit down year over year,” he said. But no one on our staff or Visit California, or our friends at See Monterey or Team San Jose, nobody is in crisis mode. We’re all looking pretty positively to the future.”

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