ManitobaTourism boomed in Manitoba last year, but this year is expected to see a drop due to wildfires and U.S. political tensions, according to the provincial travel agency.’We have had a bit of a setback, as you can well imagine’ in 2025, CEO Colin Ferguson saysDarren Bernhardt · CBC News · Posted: Nov 05, 2025 4:36 PM EST | Last Updated: 3 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesTourists watch a polar bear cub through the window of a Tundra Buggy in Churchill. (Darren Bernhardt/CBC)Tourism boomed in Manitoba last year, but this year is expected to see a drop due to wildfires and U.S. political tensions, according to the provincial travel agency.”We have definitely seen challenges in 2025,” Tim Johnston, interim board chair of Travel Manitoba, said Wednesday at the Crown corporation’s annual general meeting in Winnipeg.”The impacts of the worst wildfire season in 30 years, coupled with growing political and economic uncertainty, are being felt across the tourism industry.”Travel Manitoba’s 2024-25 annual report shows the province welcomed 10.6 million visitors in 2024, who spent a record $1.89 billion. That’s up from 10.4 million visitors and $1.82 million spent in 2023. Last year was the third consecutive year that visitor spending hit a new high, even if visitation numbers remain below the pre-pandemic peak in 2019, according to Travel Manitoba.”Going into 2025, before any of the summer challenges that we dealt with, I would have said that our numbers were going to be explosive,” Travel Manitoba president and CEO Colin Ferguson told CBC News.”We have had a bit of a setback, as you can well imagine. Typically the summer is a very busy time for us, but because of the wildfires, we pretty much paused all of our marketing.”The wildfires, which began in May and raged until nearly September, shut down large portions of the north as people were evacuated, many to hotels in the southern Manitoba cities of Winnipeg, Brandon and Portage la Prairie.Many events, conventions and visits were cancelled as the province called on people to free up hotel space for evacuees.Travel Manitoba’s Colin Ferguson says wildfires and U.S. politics affected tourism in 2025. However, more Manitobans stayed in the province as well, which might offset some losses, he says. (Submitted by Travel Manitoba)Ferguson agrees that was the priority, and said his heart goes out to those who were displaced. But in terms of tourism, that “obviously had an impact,” he said.”We still don’t know the scale of that. We will see it in next year’s [fiscal] numbers.”Despite an expectation the year will finish with an overall decline in tourism activity, that trend wasn’t showing up in the early part of 2025.According to a report from Statistics Canada, land border crossings into Manitoba increased by 7.6 per cent during the first quarter of 2025, compared to the January to March period last year.Recent numbers still show Manitoba is still faring better than many other Canadian cities, most of which have experienced a tourism slump following the trade war that began in February.In the first nine months of 2025, the number of U.S. visitors entering Manitoba by land increased by 6.6 per cent compared to the same period in 2024, according to Statistics Canada.”That is a testimony to the quality of our Churchill product — whether they’re coming in for beluga whales, polar bears or northern lights — and for our hunting and fishing products, which are absolutely world-class, and Americans know it,” Ferguson said.”We’re also seeing pretty strong growth coming out of other international markets, which is also encouraging,” but visitor numbers are “still not at the height of international visitation as it was in 2019,” he said.Northern lights dance in the sky above Churchill in September 2025. (Darren Bernhardt/CBC)But whether those numbers will hold up through the fall and winter and offset the losses due to wildfires has yet to be seen.”It’s early. We don’t have that data yet but … I’m hopeful 2025 will be better than it might be,” Ferguson said.”And we don’t know how much business was generated by Manitobans staying at home and experiencing travel and tourism here in their own province,” after many chose to avoid or boycott travel to the U.S.But that has had some negative impact on Manitoba, Ferguson told the AGM.The steep decline in travel to the U.S. led to a reduction in the number of direct flights from Winnipeg’s airport to U.S. cities, including Los Angeles and Atlanta.”Direct air access is critical in our efforts to fuel international visitation and spending related to wildlife and northern lights viewing,” Ferguson said at the AGM.”We will continue to look at other opportunities, including those within Canada, like tapping into the new seasonal Canadian non-stop routes, including St. John’s and Halifax, which also support connectivity and help drive interprovincial tourism.”ABOUT THE AUTHORDarren Bernhardt has been with CBC Manitoba since 2009 and specializes in offbeat and local history stories. He is the author of two bestselling books: The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities from the Heart of the Continent, and Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravity and More Lesser Known Histories.
Visitors spent record amount in province in 2024, but downturn expected: Travel Manitoba
