Wildwood NJ motels miss Canadian tourists at southern Jersey Shore
Wildwood businesses hasn’t seen as many Canadian tourists from Quebec and Montreal as usual, amid tensions between the U.S. and Canadian governments.
- Canadians have flocked to Cape May County, especially Wildwood, for the annual “construction holiday” for decades.
- About 7% to 9% of tourism spending in Cape May County comes from Canadian visitors.
- U.S. customs reported a 17.4% decrease in travelers entering from Canada as of June.
- U.S. Travel Association said a 10% drop in Canadian tourism could mean $2 billion lost in spending and thousands of lost jobs.
WILDWOOD – Isabella Legault is lying to her friends.
If she told them where she and her two children were vacationing, she knows what they’d say: Why are you going there? Why are you helping the American economy?
But the family needed a vacation – somewhere with warm water and wide beaches. So like countless more of her countrymen over the decades, Legault, 54, packed up the car and drove the 500 miles – past Maine and New York and even Asbury Park and Seaside Heights — from her home in Montreal to the southern Jersey Shore.
And three days “won’t change anything about the American economy,” she said.
“I just decided not to mix vacation and politics. We just wanted to get away and have fun on the beach,” Legault said, a few hours after checking into the Quebec Motel By-The-Sea in Wildwood. “I said, ‘forget the politics and everything going on down there. We’ll go and we just won’t tell anyone.’”
Amid a struggling economy and political tensions between the United States and Canadian government officials, local business leaders are reporting a significantly smaller presence of Canadian tourists along the southern Jersey Shore.
As the calendar turns to late July – the peak period for Canadian travel – there’s been a noticeable absence, especially in Wildwood, the most popular destination for tourists from north of the border.
In a place where Quebec license plates and French-speaking families have become as synonymous with “summer” as “watch the tramcar, please,” there’s a noticeable absence this year.
At Five Mile Marketplace, Sylvia Rutkowski has learned how to pick out a French accent and end sales with merci. She welcomes the Canadian customers, who she described as “supermarket sweepers.”
“Some people come in and buy a shirt or two for their family, but the Canadians come in and get the shirt, the cup, the magnet, the keychain. They get a little bit of everything, and I really appreciate them for that,” she said. “It seems a little lighter this year, but we’ll see what happens as we progress more into the summer.”
In the six years since Kathleen Thompson purchased the Granada Ocean Resort in Wildwood Crest, the business has weathered the pandemic, a nor’easter that wrecked the motel’s signage and, now, a downturn
Normally in late July, as many as 30 of the 36 rooms at the Granada Ocean Resort in Wildwood Crest are booked with Canadian families. But not this year.
This summer, owner Kathleen Thompson is taking walk-in guests during the busiest stretch of the summer.
“We’ve never had to worry, because their business is so strong,” Thompson said. “Once President Trump was elected, the phones started ringing and they would cancel.”
South Jersey Shore, from COVID to Trump
It’s a frustrating turn of events, Cape May County tourism director Diane Wieland said.
Canadian tourists make up between 7% and 9% of tourism spending in Cape May County, Wieland said. But when the COVID-19 pandemic closed the borders in 2020, Canadian tourism was suddenly ground to a halt.
They had gradually begun returning to the area, reaching about 85% of pre-pandemic levels, Wieland said. But this summer, she expects the number of Canadians to dip to about 60% to 65% of pre-pandemic levels.
“We’re still working to get them back, but there are a lot of factors out there,” Wieland said.
The clearest cause-and-effect is the fraught American-Canadian relations as a reason for the dipping tourism numbers. Unloading his car after parking at the Aquarius Oceanfront Inn, one Canadian tourist knew exactly why a reporter was approaching him.
“I know where you’re coming from, about Trump and the tariffs,” he said, declining to give his name. “But you have to determine your politics for yourself.”
Earlier in July, Trump threatened to impose a 35% tariff on Canadian goods by Aug. 1 after the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney insisted that the country wouldn’t kill a digital service tax levied on foreign tech companies, including American giants like Amazon and Google.
“Economically we have such power over Canada. We’d rather not use it,” Trump said in the Oval Office on June 27. “It’s not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it.”
Motels across Cape May County started receiving cancellation calls earlier this year, Wieland said. But while some reported the cancellations were political, most said the problem was economic – specifically pointing to the exchange rate, $1.38 U.S. dollars to $1 Canadian dollar as of July 30 (in reverse, a Canadian dollar is worth just 72 cents in U.S. dollars).
Gasoline in Quebec costs about 1.49 Canadian dollars per liter, about CA$5.64 per gallon, according to gas price comparison app GasBuddy – before even factoring in the exchange rate. In New Jersey, the average price was $3.05 per gallon.
In short: C’est l’economie, idiot. It’s the economy, stupid.
“You’re talking about an economy that hasn’t really recovered since COVID,” Wieland said. “That hits you all year long, and it impacts the disposable income for planning a vacation.”
While the reasoning is debatable, the data is clear that there are less Canadians traveling to the U.S. than before Trump was elected.
According to PolitiFact, U.S. customs reported a 17.4% decrease in travelers entering from Canada as of June. And a May survey by Leger Marketing reported that 56% of Canadians who planned to travel to the U.S. had pivoted to other destinations.
The impact of those decisions could be significant: In February, the U.S. Travel Association warned that even a 10% drop in Canadian tourism could mean $2 billion in lost spending and 14,000 lost tourism and hospitality jobs.
Cape May NJ: So charming, sincerely yours
The Canada-Cape May connection dates back to the 1970s, when the province of Qeubec instituted a two-week pause on all construction projects. The new “construction holiday” was unofficially adopted by Quebecois outside the construction industry and turned late July and early August into the prime time for travel.
Cape May County officials saw an opportunity. They began advertising in Montreal and Quebec markets and, until 1995, the county even operated a tourism office in Montreal.
“They were looking for white, sandy beaches and warmer water, so they just made their way down here,” Wieland said.
It worked.
Over the ensuing decades, le Cap de Jersey – the Jersey Cape – has become among the most popular destination for Quebec tourists during the construction holiday. They often traveled among extended family and stay for weeks at a time, booking up blocks of rooms at motels or entire cabins at the area’s many campgrounds.
The county still maintains a French social media presence and sends representatives to conventions and trade shows in Quebec and Toronto.
But there are signs that things have changed.
The country drew up an ad in the Canada Automobile Association, showing a family holding hands on the beach at sunset.
Tellement charmant, sincérement vôtre, it read.
So charming, sincerely yours.
But shortly after Cape May officials signed the contract, it was unceremoniously cancelled, Wieland said: The CAA were no longer taking ads from the United States.
Wildwood generations
Luckily for Cape May County, the “Jersey Cape” has something perhaps more effective: Word of mouth.
Many guests at the Quebec Motel By-The-Sea book for the following year upon checkout, customer relations manager Debbie Heenan said. She’s on a first-name basis with many repeat customers, and keeps in touch with them on social media in the offseason.
“They create memories here,” Heenan said. “They bring their children and their grandchildren, that’s what it’s all about. You can’t put a price on memories.”
Wildwood has the vibe of a town stuck in time.
Its resort district is recognized as a historic district by the state, with “doo-wop” motels on almost every corner featuring gaudy, neon signs along the edges.
Even the few chain stores closer to the mainland have signage out of the 1950s – like a Wawa with a neon blue-and-white motif and a beach-themed TD Bank signpost where “Wildwood” is nearly triple the size of the bank’s plain green logo.
Driving down Atlantic Avenue with the windows down, you’d expect to see a Chevrolet Bel Air pull up while playing the Beach Boys, like something out of a beach party movie.
While the locals insist much has changed, a child looking out the car window for the first time will still see a lot of what their grandfather might have seen during a construction holiday over 50 years ago. At the very least, it’s more familiar than other Jersey Shore towns in Monmouth and Ocean counties.
“These are people whose grandparents and mothers and fathers came here, and now they want to come with their kids,” Wieland said. “They stay at the same hotels, their families grow up together. They become friends.
“When people make vacation decisions, they’re emotional decisions. Politics don’t really play into it. When it’s getting close to summer, you just say: ‘I want to go back.’”
Mike Davis is an investigative reporter with the Asbury Park Press, where he’s covered local news, politics, transportation and the cannabis industry. His work has changed laws, prompted government investigations and even won a few awards, which make his parents very proud. Contact him at [email protected], @byMikeDavis on social media platforms or send an encrypted message via Signal @bymikedavis.22.
