As travel firms in the US, from Airbnb to Expedia and Hilton, note “pressure and “soft” results amid a decline in demand for bookings, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has shared exclusive data with Bloomberg showing the sector is likely to lose $12.5 billion (€11.2 billion) in travel revenue in 2025.
Visitor spending is also predicted to decline to below $169 billion in the same period, representing a drop of 7% year-on-year and 22% since the metric’s 2019 peak. Notably, the US sector is the only one among 184 global economies analyzed by WTTC and Oxford Economics, projected to see losses. “Other countries are really rolling out the welcome mat, and it feels like the US is putting up a ‘we are closed’ sign at their doorway,” says WTTC President and Chief Executive Officer Julia Simpson.
📉 Foreign tourism isn’t immune to the economic costs of tariffs. Our latest model shows foreign tourism is under pressure—particularly in cities like New York, Miami, San Francisco, and LA.
— Oxford Economics (@OxfordEconomics) May 12, 2025
👉 https://t.co/CWgHsDMP0H#USTourism #Tariffs pic.twitter.com/xYjXXLUZqQ
A “sentiment shift”
The result of America First policies, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and border enforcement that has led European nations to issue new travel advisories for visitors to the US, is “a sentiment shift that’s really very sad,” Simpson says. She notes US Department of Commerce figures that show a fall in demand for international travel to the US, which she says has “knock-on effects” across the direct and indirect industry.
UK and Korean arrivals to the US were both down 15% year-on-year in March 2025, while Germans were down by 28%; and what the Economic Times calls “other key source markets”, including Spain, Ireland and the Dominican Republic, were down between 24% and 33%. Overall across the first quarter, the inbound market was 3.3% down. The effect on players of all sizes is clear. Expedia Group recently announced a 7% decline in net bookings for the first three months of the year.
Pres. Trump is IMPULSIVE and DISLIKABLE.
— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) May 13, 2025
His tariff threats are turning American friends into enemies.
Tourism makes up about 10% of U.S. GDP. Now, according to the @WTTC, international travel spending in the U.S. is expected to fall $12.5 billion in 2025. pic.twitter.com/hbv96t7xLE
US “losing its crown”
Calling for legislators to differentiate between “the tourism sector” and “issues around illegal immigration”, Simpson said a “sophisticated system” is needed to avoid the US “turning into an island that no one wants to visit.”
The impact is already being seen at the Canadian border and major US gateways. New York City and the Empire State is facing down predicted losses of $4 billion over the year due to 800,000 fewer international visitors.
Whereas the US was once the world’s largest travel and tourism economy, it “is definitely losing its crown in this area,” Simpson said, forecasting that it will take until at least 2030 for US tourism to recover to pre-Covid levels.
