Niagara Falls businesses see fewer Canadian, European tourists this summer

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (WIVB) -- Many businesses on both sides of the border hoped the holiday weekend would bring in customers, but this year, places in Niagara Falls are noticing fewer neighbors to the north stopping over.

Chad Fifer, the president of the Aquarium of Niagara, said it's been an unpredictable year for tourism. 

"It's been a pretty unpredictable year," he said. "We'll see odd months where we're up, in both head count and revenue, and some months we're down, and in some cases, pretty significantly."

Fifer said the aquarium has had an 18 percent drop in visitors in February, making it one of its worst months so far. In June, there was a 10 percent drop in visitors. 

The aquarium has also seen fewer visitors from up north, he said. The attraction is monitoring its numbers closely. 

"As a year round attraction, we see almost 50 percent of our visitation between Memorial Day and Labor Day," Fifer said. "So the importance of this season cannot be stressed enough. It's really important that we're operating at 100 percent. We are ready to engage guests that come through. We're being very aggressive with our marketing, so these drops this time of year can have a major impact."

Bill Olesiuk runs the Craft Kitchen and Bar located in downtown Niagara Falls. 

His business is also seeing fewer Canadian tourists. He's not sure if tariff tensions are playing a factor in that.

"I'm not that guy that knows those things, but all I can tell you is the facts," Olesiuk said. "They're not coming like they have in the nine years I've been here."