Notably absent from this year's Ottawa Ski, Snowboard and Travel Show — for the first stretch in roughly twenty years — were exhibitors from American ski destinations, a gap that aligns with a broader pattern of Canadians reconsidering holiday travel across the southern border.
Over the course of the weekend, roughly 9,000 attendees passed through the doors of the Cohere Centre for the yearly gathering, where skiers and snowboarders could look over gear, holiday packages, and destination options in preparation for the season ahead. Vendor turnout at the event reached capacity, yet one group that had previously participated on a recurring basis was absent from the floor entirely.
According to Monica Kunstadt, director of the Ottawa Ski, Snowboard and Travel Show, not a single American ski resort took part in the event for at least two decades — a stretch she described as unprecedented within her knowledge of the show's history. No confirmation was available on whether the programme, which traces its origins to 1987, had seen anything similar in its earlier editions.
Kunstadt attributed the pullback in exhibitor participation to a drop in Canadian travellers choosing American ski destinations, noting that the pattern visible in attendance data left those companies with little financial reason to send staff to the show.
Visitors at the show took note of what was missing. According to Kunstadt, a portion of attendees arrived with Vermont's Jay Peak and Smugglers' Notch resorts already in mind as their preferred cross-border American options.
Dendy, a skier from the Ottawa area, said the thin presence of American exhibitors came as no particular surprise to him. For roughly seven or eight consecutive years, his family had made an annual winter-break trip to Okemo Mountain Resort, a ski destination located in Vermont. For the current season, the group found itself pointed in a different direction, with one member noting they faced much the same situation as those around them.
"Alberta and Europe are where shipments will be redirected," Dendy noted. Trips to the slopes at Banff and at Zermatt, in Switzerland, are on his agenda for the coming winter season. US ski resorts remain off the itinerary for now, though a trip to the Rocky Mountains is on the radar within the next few years, with the expectation that conditions will improve in that time.
Patrice Miron, a ski instructor at Mont Cascades, described taking a wait-and-see approach to the same choice. Miron noted that he has made numerous trips to ski destinations across the United States and holds an Ikon Pass, a multi-resort membership that covers various locations throughout New England, adding that any use south of the border would be put on hold for the time being.
Miron noted that a shift in U.S. leadership could prompt him to revisit American resort destinations, while making clear that the resorts themselves bear no responsibility for the broader political atmosphere. "When the leadership's changed over there, we'll give it a second thought," he said.
With no US options on the show floor, resorts north of the border positioned themselves as a practical choice for skiers planning to stay within the region. Joe Overton, who handles sales and promotions at Big White Ski Resort in British Columbia, described a pattern he has been tracking — namely, that a growing number of travellers from across Canada appear to be directing their holiday spending toward domestic destinations rather than abroad, a shift he attributed to what he characterised as a deliberate preference among those customers to keep both their tourism dollars and their travel itineraries within the country.
Attendees at the Ottawa exhibition, Overton noted, have shown an appetite for heading west to take in British Columbia's mountain landscapes. Visitors arriving from Washington state and other northern parts of the United States remain part of the resort's ongoing guest base, he added.
Kunstadt noted that the exhibition floor reached full capacity, with newly participating Canadian vendors — among them businesses based in Quebec — absorbing the space left by the absence of American exhibitors. She also noted that contact with American resorts has been ongoing, with a number of those properties reporting that bookings and visits from Canadian travellers have picked up again. Kunstadt expressed the hope that exhibitors who have attended the show previously — including those based in the United States — would be able to return for the 2027 edition.
