Fewer people visited Aroostook County in 2025, but they stayed longer

Fewer people visited Aroostook County in 2025, but those visitors spent more time and money in the region than previous years, according to data released by the Maine Office of Tourism this month.

The County attracted 292,700 visitors between December 2024 and November 2025, down 2.5% from the same period the previous year and down 12% from a five-year high of 332,000 in 2023. Collectively, those individuals spent nearly 1.4 million days in Maine’s largest county, a 16.5% increase.

“An overnight visitor has a heck of a lot more economic impact than a day trip visitor,” Aroostook tourism developer Jacob Pelkey said at a late April event, where he discussed a preview of the data.

Visitors spent $170 million and had an economic impact north of $251 million last year, both up about 2% from a year prior.

By both spending metrics, Aroostook County slightly outpaced growth statewide, and the area saw a smaller decline of visitors overall compared with the rest of Maine (4.4%).

Canadian tourism to the region declined for the third straight year, with just 4.5% of total visitors to The County coming from neighboring New Brunswick, and 8.3% from Canada overall. It’s the lowest percentage since the COVID-19 pandemic, as strained political relations and cross-border rhetoric, mixed with economic factors, have led many Canadians to vacation elsewhere.

“They do read our headlines, they do read our funny comments that we write on social media, they take that into account,” Pelkey said.

The state and local tourism agencies have changed their marketing strategies as a result, Pelkey said, targeting advertising to in-state visitors from a belt of Maine stretching from Lincoln to Lewiston.

The result, he added, was positive for the region’s economy.

“It was a really healthy year for tourism,” he said. “Even though we attracted a different type of visitor.”