11 million visitors short: Inside America's continuing tourism slump

Visitors from Canada, the second-largest source of US tourism, plunged by 28 % in January compared to January 2024

By Ceylan Yeginsu

 

Michelle Cowley, a London-based communications specialist, and her husband spent nearly two years planning a $16,000 vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida. Then their children, ages 7 and 11, heard about Renee Good and Alex Pretti being killed by ICE agents and didn’t want to go.

 

Comments by US President Trump in January, including threats to annex Greenland and criticisms of British military contributions in Afghanistan, sealed the family’s decision.

 

“We have decided that it really is not the place we want to be at the moment,” Cowley said.

 

Last year, as tourism grew worldwide, the US was the only major destination to see a decline in foreign visitors, recording a 6 percent drop, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, an industry group. January saw a continued decline in inbound visitors, down 4.8 percent from January 2025. Visitors from Canada, usually the second-largest source of US tourism after Mexico, plunged by 28 percent in January compared to January 2024. Other key markets like Germany and France also recorded significant declines, while Britain, the largest long-haul source market for U.S. tourism, saw a marginal growth of 0.5 percent compared to the previous year.

 

 

“When 11 million international visitors aren’t showing up, the result is billions of dollars in economic losses to the travel industry,” said Erik Hansen, a senior vice-president at the U.S. Travel Association, a trade group that promotes travel to and within the country.

 

The Trump administration has made it significantly harder for some travelers to enter the US, barring visitors from more than a dozen countries and introducing a $250 “visa integrity fee” for nonimmigrant tourist and business visas designed to discourage visitors from overstaying. Visitors are also facing more rigorous vetting at the border, with increased searches of electronic devices, some resulting in detentions and denied entry. Citizens of countries who just need an electronic authorisation to visit the US may soon be required to provide up to five years of social media history to enter; that could result in a loss of up to $15.7 billion in visitor spending, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

 

With the United States set to host the Fifa World Cup this summer and major events lined up around the country’s 250th anniversary and the Route 66 Centennial, 2026 has the potential to reverse the negative trend line, said Hansen of the US Travel Association. 

 

“Ongoing policy uncertainty and enforcement actions from the Trump administration are likely to limit gains, leaving the U.S. at risk of underperforming other international destination markets again this year,” the firm said. The World Cup is expected to draw millions of soccer fans to 11 US cities this summer. Still, some members of the global soccer community, including the former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, have joined calls to boycott the event in response to violence by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

 

With so many international tourists interested in visiting Florida, the state serves as a bellwether for foreign visitation to the US.

 

Many tourists from Canada, who traditionally flock to the state in winter, avoided it last year, according to state estimates, which show a 14.7 percent decline in Canadian visitors. WestJet, the Canadian airline has cut summer flights to US destinations, including Orlando, and the Montreal-based airline Air Transat announced last week that it will stop operating flights to Florida this summer.  While 2025 data for overall international travel to Florida is not yet available, the total number of visitors, including those from Mexico and Canada as well as overseas destinations, declined by 1.2 percent, falling to 12.2 million people from 12.35 million, according to data from Visit Florida, the state’s official tourism marketing corporation. But when asked about the data, the organization highlighted the growth in overseas visitors, which excludes Canada, saying they were up 4 percent from 2024 and that the group expected 2025 to be a record-breaking year for tourism. “Florida is looking forward to being a hub for travelers coming to the U.S. for the World Cup,” Bryan Griffin, the group’s president and chief executive officer said in an email.

 

While it is still early in the year, airline booking analysis from the flight data company Cirium published this month showed a 14.2 percent decline in July bookings from Europe compared to last year. 

 

Kerstin Heinen, a spokeswoman for the German Travel Association, said she does not know why bookings continue to decline, but that the reasons “may range from political and social factors to entry requirements and price levels.”  Britain has remained stable amid the downturn in Western European visitation, but the stagnation has some travel advisers concerned about future demand. 

 

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