Trump slump, tariff damages US tourism

The US tourism industry was expecting a surge in the numbers of foreign tourists but thanks to US President Donald Trump’s big mouth over policies and the reciprocal tariff, people are shunning away from the US.

The federal government’s National Travel and Tourism Office released preliminary figures Tuesday showing visits to the U.S. from overseas fell 11.6% in March compared to the same month last year.

The figures did not include arrivals from Canada, which is scheduled to report tourism data later this week, or land crossings from Mexico. But air travel from Mexico dropped 23%.

For the January-March period, 7.1 million visitors entered the U.S. from overseas, 3.3% fewer than during the first three months of 2024, AP News reported.

The travel forecasting company Tourism Economics, which as recently as December anticipated the U.S. would have nearly 9% more international arrivals this year, revised its annual outlook last week to predict a 9.4% decline.

The steepest declines will be from Canada, where Trump’s repeated suggestion that the country should become the 51st state and tariffs on close trading partners have angered residents.

Canada was the largest source of visitors to the U.S. in 2024, with more than 20.2 million, according to U.S. government data.

Flight Centre Travel Group Canada, a travel booking site, said leisure bookings to U.S. destinations were down 40% in March compared to the same month a year ago.

Air Canada has reduced its schedule of spring flights to Florida, Las Vegas and Arizona due to lack of demand.

The National Travel and Tourism Office gave a rosier forecast last month for international travel to the U.S. Based on 2024 travel patterns, the office said it expected arrivals to increase 6.5% to 77.1 million this year and surpass 2019 levels in 2026.

But Tourism Economics said the impact of the less favorable view of the U.S. from abroad could be severe enough that international visits won’t surpass pre-pandemic levels until 2029.

“The survey data is all indicating a significant mix of cancellations and a massive drop in intent to travel,” Tourism Economics President Adam Sacks said.

international arrivals from China were down nearly 1%. Leisure trips by Chinese citizens to places like Disneyland, Hawaii and New York are decreasing dramatically and likely won’t pick up again until Trump has left office, said Wolfgang Georg Arlt, the CEO of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute.

He dubs it the “Trump Slump.”

That slump has financial consequences. Tourism Economics expects U.S. spending by international visitors to drop by $9 billion this year.

Beyond, a revenue management platform for vacation rental owners, said Canadian searches for short-term rentals in the U.S. plunged 44% after Feb. 1, when Trump first announced a since-paused 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico. Florida, Texas and New York were among the hardest-hit markets, Beyond said.

American Ring Travel, a tour operator based in California, offers carbon-neutral bus tours of the U.S. that often attract eco-conscious travelers from Europe, said Richard Groesz, the company’s director of contracting.

But bookings from Germany flattened starting in January after Elon Musk threw his support behind a far-right political party in that country’s federal election, Groesz said.