The city of Bellingham is just one of the many victims of the political turmoil roiling the United States right now. Dylan Deane-Boyle is on the front lines of it.

Deane-Boyle has served as president and CEO of Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism for more than two years. He watched with apprehension as President Trump first talked of annexing Canada, and then announced steep tariffs on most countries around the world, including Canada.

In February alone, personal vehicle traffic from British Columbia to the U.S. for tourism-related purposes was down more than 30% compared to the same month last year, according to Statistics Canada. Hotel occupancy was down about 17% in February.

Deane-Boyle notes that the exchange rate also contributes to the drop in tourism. One Canadian dollar equals about 72 cents of a U.S. dollar, meaning that if you’re converting money from Canadian to U.S., you’ll get fewer U.S. dollars.

In 2023, tourism contributed more than $750 million to the Whatcom County economy.

What was your initial reaction to the tariffs and political uncertainty? We were holding our breath. We didn’t really know what the impact would be. Now, we are absolutely feeling it. We’re so inextricably linked with British Columbia.

Have you shifted some of your marketing dollars away from British Columbia to places in the Northwest? The exchange rate also what really plays into what we see from our visitations here from Vancouver and British Columbia. We’re using similar strategies that we have in times past, so we’re shifting of our messaging to those domestic drive markets (Seattle, Portland, Eastern Washington) and are hoping to increase some of that domestic visitation.

Has reaching out to Seattle visitors always been part of your marketing strategy? That’s part of our strategy for the World Cup (in June and July 2026 at Lumen Field in Seattle). We’re a designated FIFA fan zone, and we’ve been working with FIFA Seattle because we’re strategically located between two major host cities (Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.)

Is it more for visitors or for people to stay? I think it’s both. From the Vancouver perspective, we’re hoping for some compression. We saw that with the Taylor Swift show in December during a time of year when our hotels really needed it, because the price of hotels in Vancouver was prohibitively expensive for some of the concert-goers.

What’s the overall outlook for tourism this year? For us, it’s summer. Are we seeing Canadians come down for our marquee events? I don’t really have answers for that question at this point. Conversely, the average daily rate for our lodging properties is up 2% to 3% this year, which is good. We do have some business travel this spring, but for me, it’s based around what happens in summer.

Final thoughts? We can all acknowledge to our Canadian friends that we know this is complicated, that we love you, and we’re here when you’re ready.