America stands to lose about $30 billion in worldwide tourism this yr, because the nation’s political surroundings and robust greenback proceed to discourage overseas vacationers from visiting.
In early 2025, the U.S. Journey Affiliation projected foreign travel spending would rise to $200.8 billion this yr.
Nonetheless, noting a “sharp and widespread” drop in arrivals, the World Journey & Tourism Council in Might projected worldwide customer spending would drop to $169 billion for the yr.
The misplaced income is ready to learn different international locations — notably Canada and Latin America — as vacationers search out different locations or determine to remain inside their very own international locations or areas.
Neighboring international locations
Within the first half of 2025, Canadian arrivals to the U.S. fell nearly 18% year on year, representing a drop of greater than 1,750,000 visits, in response to the U.S. Worldwide Commerce Administration.
Many Canadians are turning to home journey, which helped push the nation’s July hotel occupancy rate to 77.6%, its highest stage since 2019, in response to actual property knowledge supplier CoStar. The “Canada Robust Move” — a summer season tourism initiative marked as a celebration of energy and unity within the nation — drove a rise in visits to Canada’s museums, historic websites and nationwide parks, the federal government reported this week.
Different Canadians proceed to enterprise south, flying over, relatively than to, the USA, in response to the analysis agency Tourism Economics.
“We’re seeing extra Canadians are headed to Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean,” mentioned Adam Sacks, the corporate’s president.
Knowledge from Reserving Holdings additionally exhibits Canadians are more and more selecting Mexico as a journey vacation spot, a consultant instructed CNBC Travel.
Latin America is interesting to extra vacationers from Europe too, in response to the consulting agency Accenture. The area, in addition to the Caribbean, is attracting Europeans who’re searching for alternate options to the U.S., a consultant mentioned.
‘New journey corridors’
In an e-mail to CNBC, a Reserving Holdings consultant mentioned the corporate is seeing “new journey corridors” emerge as inbound journey to the U.S. drops, noting a rise amongst Europeans to journey inside Europe and to Asia.
Western Europeans, particularly, are more and more touring inside the area, in addition to to the Center East, added Tourism Economics’ Sacks.
Extra Asian vacationers, too, are trying to find journeys to Europe and the Center East this yr, mentioned Michael Dykes, Expedia Group’s vp for market administration in Asia-Pacific.
A CNBC survey of 6,000 Southeast Asian international travelers, carried out by Milieu Perception, confirmed that amongst these reconsidering journeys to the U.S., most mentioned they plan to journey inside Southeast Asia or East Asia, adopted by Europe and Oceania.
Singaporean traveler Rahul Jain instructed CNBC Journey that he is already booked a visit to Australia this yr, and now he is contemplating going to the UK or France.
“Europe remains to be enticing to me,” he mentioned. However, he added, the U.S. is “off my checklist.”
13 million fewer vacationers
Within the first half of 2025, the U.S. welcomed about 1 million fewer worldwide guests in comparison with the identical interval in 2024, in response to government data.
However in comparison with 2019, it is on observe to see 13 million fewer worldwide guests by the year-end, mentioned Sacks.
On the identical time, journey arrivals are rising to different international locations.
“The international locations forecast to witness the biggest achieve in worldwide visits relative to 2019 are Spain, Saudi Arabia and Turkey,” he mentioned, that are anticipated to obtain 16.5 million, 14.5 million, and 14 million extra vacationers, respectively.
America’ share of world worldwide journey fell from 8.4% in 1996 to 4.9% in 2024, as different markets developed and new markets entered the fray, mentioned Sacks.
The U.S.’ share of cross-border journey dropped within the early 2000s, leveled off, then took one other hit throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period, in response to knowledge from Tourism Economics.
This yr, it is set to fall once more, with the USA’ share of world worldwide arrivals forecast to drop to 4.2%, mentioned Sacks. And, it is projected to stay at that stage via the subsequent decade, he mentioned.
“The U.S. is dropping share once more in 2025,” mentioned Sacks. “We do not count on it to recuperate that share inside our forecast horizon.”
In the meantime, arrivals to different prime tourism attracts — together with France, Greece, Mexico and Italy — are set to extend this yr.
This exhibits “how dire this has been for the U.S. in comparison with competing locations,” mentioned Sacks.
