This serves as a video transcript, for the YouTube video found here:
Bullets:
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Global tourism is booming in 2025, with every major market reporting strong recoveries from pandemic-era slumps.
The US market is the sole exception, with steep double-digit percentage declines in international travelers from almost every country.
Industry analysts were prepared for deep losses in the Chinese segment, as a result of radical changes in travel and visa policy.
But the global reaction to the tariffs has also demolished inbound travel from most other markets. Travel from Canada, by far the biggest source of tourists and tourist spending, is down over 40% on the year. All European countries are down 15% or more. And new concerns center on Brazil, which is the source of most tourists inbound South America.
Airlines are restructuring flight schedules and routes to serve the growing demand for international travel to non-US destinations.
Report:
Good morning. The tourism industry in the United States was already girding itself for a rocky year in 2025. But as the year has gone on, the numbers rolling in were worse than anyone thought, and getting even more so with each new month.
We already knew that China would be a problem. Stories like these were everywhere in the news here in Asia—study abroad trips to the United States collapsed almost completely. New visa rules went into effect, and Chinese kids who wanted to study in the US for the summer needed to visit the US consulate for a formal interview. That is the procedure anyway for students going to study at a university, but this applied to even younger kids, just heading over for summer camps. The rejection rates were pretty high, and so word spread quickly that families should consider other countries instead. The American summer camp programs were a major industry, for agencies here and for schools in the US, but those numbers are down 80% from a few years ago.
The big declines from China were baked-in, and China is a massive outbound tourism market, so just to tread water the US tourism industry needs to make up ground with increases everywhere else. But that didn’t happen either. In the beginning, things kind of looked okay.
This is a survey from the New York Times from 30 April, and they concluded that—at that time—travel to the US was holding steady. International arrivals were similar to last year’s. After trying to make sense of these data and why they didn’t seem to agree with reports from towns that are near the Canada border, I figured out that some of the industry surveys do count travelers from Canada to be “international”, and other surveys don’t, especially if the Canadian visitors are their driving cars over. That was the problem with that chart, here:
When Canadians are considered, it was already a disaster. Through April, Canadian visitors by car were off more than 40% year over year. These are the major land crossings between Canada and the US, Washington state down 43%, same over in New York:
The Canadians weren’t booking flights on planes either. Those were off 21% as of the end of April. Again—these data already looked bad in April. Airline bookings are forward-looking: they’re for flights later, and there are big declines here from the biggest markets.
Some of the other sources of tourists were holding steady, and some others were up—Brazil was up 4%, for example, through April, but there are some big concerns about Brazil, now. Japan too. So if the tourism industry had any chance of a good year, they needed to make up for the losses in China, and get the Canadians to soften their mood in time for summer, and then hope that nothing else breaks.
Then the numbers came in for the full quarter, and we see the trends steepening—getting worse, out of all the major European markets. And so by May, industry analysts knew there were big problems. On 14 May, the World Travel and Tourism Council estimated losses of $12.5 billion for the US market, compared to 2024. That is a 22% decline, and the United States is the only economy that would see a decrease for the year. Tourism is growing across the world, for every country except the US. Inbound from UK down 15%, Germany off 28%, South Korea 15%.
By July, the numbers were even worse, and the estimated losses would be $29 billion. Canada is the biggest reason—Canadians stopped driving over, and stopped flying in. It was the fifth month in a row of steepening declines. Canadians still love to travel, to everywhere else.
This is all being felt on the ground in the areas that are most dependent on tourism. Las Vegas is seeing bookings there collapse, driven by that big drop from Canada. Steepening is the word there too—down 14.9% in June, getting worse every month, along with occupancy, and revenues per room.
These are some the metro areas most dependent on tourism. Orlando, New York, Miami, Seattle, LA. This part is good: if visitor counts from Canada drop 10%, that translates to 2 million fewer trips—either by car or plane. $2.1 billion in lower spending, and 14,000 job losses.
But Canada is off over 40%. So multiply all those numbers by at least four. And that is just Canada. When we look city by city, New York visits will drop 2.5 million for the year, and a loss of $4 billion in spend. California off 9%. Orlando draws over 6 million tourists a year from abroad, and Canada is most of those.
Miami also has a problem: the primary source for tourism to Miami is South America, especially Brazil—28 million visitors spending $22 billion, and if travelers from Brazil have the same visceral reaction to the new tariffs hitting them as travelers from Canada, that’s bad news for Miami.
So as inbound travelers are going elsewhere instead, airlines are re-routing flights to meet changing demand. Some analysts thought the drop in inbound travelers would last just a quarter or two, but nobody thinks that anymore. Air Canada shut down major routes to Florida, Texas, and California. An Icelandic airline with service between Europe and the US announced they would stop all service, effective next month.
Be Good.
Resources and links:
Another budget airline just canceled all flights to the U.S.
https://www.thestreet.com/travel/play-airline-canceled-us-flights
Another global airline cuts three US flights due to low demand
https://www.thestreet.com/travel/american-express-travel-benefits-crackdown
Orlando Unites New York City, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles and Other American Cities in Facing More New Tourism Challenges as Trade Disputes, Strong USD, Reduced Flights Loom
Las Vegas hotels grapple with steep occupancy decline
The beloved US city that lost its magic - as bookings plummet and tourism drops
Forbes, U.S. Tourism Will Lose Up To $29 Billion As Visitors Plummet Amid Trump Policies
U.S Economy Set To Lose $12.5BN In International Traveler Spend this year
https://wttc.org/news/us-economy-set-to-lose-12-5bn-in-international-traveler-spend-this-year
Biggest spenders in outbound tourism, by country
CNBC, Fewer international tourists are visiting the U.S. — economic losses could be ‘staggering,’ researchers estimate
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/28/travel-spending-us-from-overseas-tourists-to-fall-in-2025.html
The Trump Effect? Some Europeans Rethink U.S. Travel
https://www.statista.com/chart/34191/number-of-travelers-from-western-europe-to-the-us/
New York Times, Has International Travel to the U.S. Really Collapsed?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/30/world/us-travel-decline.html
South China Morning Post Exclusive | Is this the end of summer US study trips for Chinese children?
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3314463/end-summer-us-study-trips-chinese-children
‘They created this impasse’: Lula, Trump at a standstill on tariffs
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/12/why-brazil-isnt-caving-to-trump-on-trade-00504347
Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Addresses Threats to the United States from the Government of Brazil
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