Canadian Bookings Are Down 20%. International Travel to U.S. STRs Is Slowing. Here Are the 8 Markets Where the Fundamentals Still Hold.

Canadian bookings to U.S. short-term rentals fell more than 20% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, according to data reported by Skift in late April, citing AirDNA. That is not a seasonal blip. That is the sharpest single-market demand withdrawal I have tracked across four decades of working with tourism and real estate data, and it arrived right in the middle of the summer 2026 booking window.

I have seen a lot of economic cycles from my desk in Santa Fe. After 40 years in government statistics and market research, I know the difference between a temporary softness and a structural shift. What the StaySTRA data shows is that this one is structural for a specific set of markets, and barely visible in others. The question investors need to answer before making any summer 2026 portfolio moves is: which side of that line does my market fall on?

The Macro Signal: What Changed and Why It Matters Now

The Canadian decline is the sharpest number, but it sits inside a much larger pattern. The U.S. Travel Association reported that international visitors spent $176 billion in the United States in 2025, which was more than $14 billion less than in 2024. In April 2026, international arrivals to the U.S. fell 14.1% year over year. The association does not expect a full return to 2019 visitor levels until 2029.

Canada is historically the largest single source of international visitors to the U.S., with roughly 20 million arrivals per year in normal years. Polling from early 2026 found that 70% of Canadian adults had no plans to visit the U.S. this year. Canadian return trips from the U.S. fell 25.4% in 2025, according to Statistics Canada data. Air Transat suspended all U.S.-bound flights for summer 2026. The Canadian travel boycott, driven by tariff disputes, annexation rhetoric, and tighter U.S. border enforcement, ran for 14 consecutive months before showing the first faint signs of easing in April 2026.

European markets are also declining. France is down roughly 6% in U.S. arrivals, Germany about 7%, the United Kingdom about 4%. Advance flight bookings from Europe for July 2026 are running approximately 15% below year-ago levels, per aviation analytics data. Some South American and Asian markets are showing growth, providing a partial offset at the national level, but that offset does not reach the ski resorts in Utah and the Gulf Coast towns in Florida that depend most on Canadian and European guests.

Think of it like a rain gauge that only captures water falling in certain valleys. The international demand contraction is real, but its impact is not distributed evenly across the STR landscape. Some markets barely feel it. Others are soaked. The StaySTRA data makes that distinction clear. If you want to check where your specific market stands right now, the StaySTRA Analyzer shows current occupancy and revenue benchmarks by market.

For additional context on how the broader STR market performed in the period leading into this pullback, see our Q1 2026 STR market performance analysis.

Which U.S. STR Markets Face the Highest Exposure

Based on StaySTRA data through February 2026 and the geographic profile of international visitor flows, five U.S. STR markets show the clearest demand pressure in our numbers. All five share the same underlying trait: a historically high share of Canadian and European visitors who are not showing up in 2026 at the rates they did before.

Park City, Utah is the most striking case in the dataset. Occupancy in February 2026 ran at 39%, down from 60% in the same month a year earlier. RevPAR fell 31.2% year over year to $372. Canadian and European skiers have historically made up a significant share of Utah ski resort visitors. The active listing count is also down about 7%, suggesting operators know demand is under pressure and are managing supply accordingly. The market still commands high ADR ($986 in February), which means the guests who do come are spending. But there are far fewer of them.

Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida have among the highest concentrations of Canadian seasonal visitors of any metro area in the country. The so-called snowbird pattern (Canadians who spend three to four winter months in Gulf Coast Florida) drives a disproportionate share of STR revenue in both markets. StaySTRA data shows Sarasota RevPAR fell 13.3% year over year in February 2026, and Bradenton fell 15.2% over the same period.

Miami, Florida is the most internationally oriented STR market in the database. With demand from Canada, Europe, and Latin America representing an outsized share of bookings, the 14.7% RevPAR decline in StaySTRA data reflects exactly what you would expect from a market where international demand is contracting on multiple fronts simultaneously.

Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona tell a more nuanced story. Scottsdale ADR reached $587 in February 2026, and RevPAR was technically positive at +1.2% year over year. Phoenix RevPAR, however, fell 9.3%. The mixed picture likely reflects a shift in visitor mix: fewer Canadian snowbirds at moderate price points, partially offset by a higher-spending domestic visitor segment. Investors in the Phoenix metro should not take the Scottsdale ADR bump as a sign that the entire market is insulated. It is not.

For more context on the supply dynamics driving some of these patterns, our piece on STR markets where supply cannot keep up with demand covers the structural supply side of the equation.

The 8 Markets Where Fundamentals Still Hold

Not every market is exposed to this pullback. StaySTRA data shows a clear set of domestic-demand-anchored markets where RevPAR is growing and supply is stable or contracting, which is the combination that supports DSCR loan coverage regardless of what is happening with Canadian and European travel patterns.

Here is what the data shows for the eight strongest markets on this measure:

Source: StaySTRA data, February 2026. YOY comparisons are February 2026 vs. February 2025.

Nashville stands out as the single clearest story in this table. RevPAR grew 26% year over year while the active listing count fell more than 21%. When supply contracts and demand holds firm, the math works in the operator’s favor. Think of it like a parking lot where a third of the spaces were taken offline: everyone who still needs to park pays a higher rate, and the lot fills faster. Nashville is a domestic entertainment and events city. Its STR guests come from Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Charlotte. Not from Ottawa or Frankfurt. That geographic insulation is structural, not luck.

Blue Ridge, Georgia shows the same dynamic at smaller scale. RevPAR grew 14.2% while supply increased less than 2%. The mountain cabin country of north Georgia runs almost entirely on drive-to domestic demand from the Atlanta metro and the Southeast corridor. No meaningful international demand exposure.

Asheville, North Carolina deserves its own note. Don’t let the lower absolute RevPAR number scare you. At $81, the RevPAR looks modest compared to Charleston’s $185 or Joshua Tree’s $169. But the supply side of Asheville’s table is remarkable: active listings fell nearly 20% year over year. When that much supply exits a market, the operators who remain absorb demand that previously spread across a much larger pool. That supply contraction is a structural tailwind for anyone holding through the consolidation period, and it signals that conditions favor a DSCR hold even if the absolute RevPAR needs to grow to support new acquisitions.

Charleston, South Carolina and Joshua Tree, California represent the two highest-RevPAR entries in this group. Charleston’s historic district draws overwhelmingly from domestic U.S. travel, with both supply contracting and RevPAR growing year over year. Joshua Tree’s high-desert identity has carved out a niche that is difficult to replicate, pulling from Los Angeles, San Diego, and the broader West Coast markets. Both markets show supply declining at the same time RevPAR is improving, which is the combination DSCR lenders look for.

For investors specifically evaluating DSCR loan viability in these markets, our 2026 DSCR loan guide for STR investors covers how lenders underwrite to market occupancy data. Our 50-market analysis of the best STR markets for DSCR borrowers provides additional context for comparing these markets against the broader field.

What Investors Should Do Before Summer Closes

The summer 2026 booking window is open now. If you hold STRs in markets with meaningful Canadian or European demand exposure, you are likely already seeing softness in your forward-booking numbers. The question worth sitting with is whether that softness is temporary or structural.

Stay with me here, because this distinction matters directly for your underwriting math. A temporary dip (one soft summer, one weak quarter) affects cash flow but may not change long-term asset value in a lasting way. A structural shift, where Canadian and European visitors simply do not come back for two or three years because the political and economic dynamics changed, affects your DSCR coverage in a more lasting and difficult-to-reverse way. You cannot underwrite a new acquisition based on prior years of Canadian snowbird bookings if those bookings are not reliably returning in the near term.

For investors evaluating new acquisitions, the pattern in the StaySTRA data points toward a clear framework. Markets anchored in domestic drive-to demand, with supply that is not rapidly expanding, are better positioned for consistent DSCR coverage during a period of international demand uncertainty. The eight markets in the table above all fit that profile in different ways.

For existing hosts in markets like Park City, Miami, or the Florida Gulf Coast, the right response is not to panic. It is to pull your current market data and understand exactly where your occupancy and ADR stand relative to the market average. You may be outperforming your market. You may not. Knowing which is the starting point for any intelligent portfolio decision.

One more data point worth noting: the national average across StaySTRA’s market database shows February 2026 occupancy at 37.2%, with ADR rising about 18% year over year to $350.91, though RevPAR still fell 8.3% overall as occupancy declined. That ADR increase matters: it tells us that the demand which does exist is willing to pay more. The markets in the table above are the ones where both sides of that equation are working simultaneously. Run your target market through the analyzer before the summer data locks in.

We do our best to keep our data accurate and up to date, but markets move fast and we are only human. Always verify current figures directly with local sources before making investment decisions.