The wind was blowing hard enough to lift the desert sand into the air.
At a sprawling ranch near Mesquite, Nevada, gusts rattled the palm trees and coated a row of empty garden chairs with dust. Beyond them, a group of camels, tall, curious and surprisingly gentle, ambled across the property.
Usually, the ranch hosts a steady trickle of tourists from nearby Las Vegas, many of them curious to see camels roaming the edge of the Mojave Desert.
On busy days, guests gather beneath the palm trees before setting off on guided tours and camel rides. But on this particular afternoon, there were no reservations.
“The most noticeable market segment that no longer comes here are the Canadian tourists,” Guy Seeklus, a Canadian entrepreneur who runs Camel Safari, tells The National. “Now we just don’t see them.”
Before the pandemic, he says, visitors from Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton frequently drove south for winter holidays in Nevada and Arizona, trading harsh conditions for desert sun.
For small businesses scattered across the region, from helicopter tours to roadside attractions, the disappearance of Canadian visitors has become an increasingly visible problem. At the ranch, where tourism helps sustain the property and provide daily care to animals, the shift has been impossible to ignore.
“Tourism is everything to us,” Manda Butler, a zookeeper at Camel Safari, tells The National. “If tourism in Las Vegas is down, so is ours.”
Spread across more than 170 acres of desert near the Virgin River, the property is home to dozens of animals. The camels, including two-humped Bactrians from Central Asia and one-humped dromedaries more commonly associated with the Middle East and North Africa, are the main attraction. But there are also llamas, alpacas and a handful of more unusual residents, including a sloth.
Visitors who make the drive here are typically greeted by curious animals upon arrival. Tours allow guests to feed alpacas, meet the camels and learn about how the animals’ padded feet, thick eyelashes and closeable nostrils help them survive in their natural habitat.
The ranch also offers guided ATV tours, during which staff explain the ecology of the landscape and the history of camels in North America, where their ancestors roamed wild before migrating across the Bering Strait millions of years ago.
“Everybody comes with a little bit of scepticism,” Ms Butler says. “Like, what is a camel safari?” But when they meet the camels and learn their story, she says, they leave saying, “Wow, I had a really great, educational experience.”
But despite the activities on offer, the operation has struggled financially. “Right now we’re not profitable,” says Mr Seeklus. “That’s why we’re exploring other avenues.”
Those ideas range from renting the ranch to film productions to offering a Bedouin-style tent experience and experimenting with camel milk, a niche product attracting attention in health and wellness circles.
“You morph, you adapt … you have to be nimble,” he says. “I think there’s a famous business phrase … innovate or die.”
The 51st state effect
What’s happening at the camel safari is playing out across the wider tourism economy of southern Nevada.
Canadians, long among the region’s most reliable visitors, appear to be staying away in greater numbers, leaving ripple effects for smaller attractions, tour operators and day-trip destinations. On a recent weekend in Las Vegas, the roar of private jets and commercial airliners taking off from Harry Reid International Airport was almost constant.
A few miles away, just south of the Strip, tourists queue in the sun for selfies in front of the 25-foot-tall “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. Taxis crawl along Las Vegas Boulevard as visitors drift past the city’s themed resorts, including the pyramid-shaped Luxor.
At first glance, the city feels as crowded as ever. But the numbers tell a different story: tourism in Las Vegas has quietly declined, particularly on weekdays.
“Where we are struggling is with Canadians, they’re down 20 per cent year over year,” Andrew Woods, director of the Centre for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, tells The National. “That is unfortunately due to politics, which we can't control here in Las Vegas.”
US President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada and his jibes about it becoming the “51st state” are among the reasons some Canadians are choosing not to travel to their southern neighbour.
Before Mr Trump’s second term in office, few foreign visitors loved Las Vegas quite like Canadians. When they come, according to Mr Woods, they tend to stay longer than most international travellers, often making the desert city their only stop in the US and booking for week-long stays.
“Our operators have voiced their displeasure, because we love Canadians,” he says. “They are our number one international visitor.”
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, an organisation responsible for attracting tourism, conventions and business travel to southern Nevada, recorded an overall 7.5 per cent decrease in tourism to the city in 2025, shaped in part by what they call “shifting travel dynamics”.
Tourism is central to the local economy. One in four jobs in southern Nevada is tied to leisure and hospitality, and the sector accounts for about a third of the region’s GDP, as well as about half of the state budget, Mr Woods says.
“What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas,” he adds. “It influences the entire state.”
The decline in tourism has surprised and frustrated operators in a city where international visitors such as Canadians are prized by hotels and casinos and punch above their weight economically.
Some are moving quickly to entice them back. Three hotels – Circa, The D and the Golden Gate – recently launched a promotion offering Canadians an at-par exchange rate, treating one Canadian dollar as equal to one US dollar.
For Derek Stevens, owner of the three businesses, the absence of Canadian tourists hits close to home. He grew up in suburban Detroit, able to see the province of Ontario across the lake from his bedroom, and says the cross-border connection has always been part of his life.
“I want to invite Canada back to Las Vegas,” he said in a video message posted on social media. “I miss Canada, Las Vegas misses Canada, our team misses Canada.”
Despite the downturn, the city still draws tens of millions of visitors every year, attracted by its bright lights, slot machines and repertoire of big-ticket events such as WrestleMania and the Las Vegas Grand Prix. But its tourism economy runs on volume, and even small changes in travel patterns have an impact on the region.
Back at the ranch near Mesquite, the animals wander the dusty paddocks, waiting for the next group of visitors to arrive. When Mr Seeklus travels home to Canada, he says he hears from his fellow Canadians on why fewer of them seem willing to holiday in the US.
“It’s all about respect,” he says. “I was in Vancouver a week ago, and ultimately, it's about a lack of respect.”
The US and Canada share what is often described as the world’s longest undefended border, and a relationship built over generations of trade, travel and cultural exchange.
“You don’t get friends like that easily,” Mr Seeklus says. “It takes a very long time to earn that kind of friendship and respect.”
