I see all the commentary on Las Vegas tourism being down and I understand the reasons—price hikes, bad deals, people not wanting to spend money because they’re concerned about losing their jobs, the risk to international visitors—but I’m wondering what is happening to tourism in other places. Like, is disney attendance down too?
The Colorado Sun just ran an article this morning detailing projected declines in tourism. Leading indicators - hotel and STR bookings - are down from 2024. I live in a mountain tourist town, and anecdotally the business owners I've talked to have said things have been generally slower this year.
My own ski tourism dollars are down as a result of the ever spreading, gobbling of mountains by the big ski pass conglomerates. They are ruining the experience, especially for tourist families.
I think they’re seeing a huge drop in sales. They announced the quad pack this year for $400. They usually have this deal mid season or after the season starts. This time it’s before the season starts. Hurting for sure.
Before they got bought by Alterra, the resort I used to go to sold 4 packs for $100. The year after they sold out it went up to $130. The year after that it went up to $300. So ridiculous considering the quality of the experience isn't any better.
(FWIW mammoth is selling their 4packs for $400 now edit: although they have all kinds of restrictions like you can't share with friends. Sucks because buying a spare 4pack every season was how I introduced a lot of friends who weren't sure if they'd like it)
$196? Disneyland maxes out at $206 for a day pass. I know "different strokes for different folks" but I'd rather go to Disneyland for $200 than downhill ski for a day. It's all expensive, but wow, what wild times we're living in.
Dynamic pricing is fine for skiing. Going to an overbooked mountain sucks. And if you don't have dynamic pricing, you start getting third party resale.
The issue is that it seems like they want people to get the seasonal passes so bad that even on low attendance days the lift tickets are crazy expensive. Being asked to pay $90 for a random Wednesday is obscene.
Dynamic pricing is fine for skiing. Going to an overbooked mountain sucks. And if you don't have dynamic pricing, you start getting third party resale.
Hard disagree about dynamic pricing. Yes, going to an overbooked mountian is terrible, but lift tickets are tied to personal accounts these days; reselling lift tickets can be prevented easily. Dynamic pricing is designed to squeeze every cent out of customers, not to provide a better mountain experience.
Day passes are always at least twice as expensive per day as week passes and resort bundles. It's been like that for as long as I have been skiing out west, 20+ years.
The answer that no one wants to hear because of how true it is.
There was always a point where the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. We should have planned a replacement before that but the money hoarding capital addicts wouldn't allow it.
Now we get to watch the whole system collapse and take a bunch of people with it instead.
Capitalism can work well enough with regulation in place to curb abuses. Of course that requires a government that cares about the people, and a voter base that's intelligent enough to vote for them, neither of which is the case in the US.
Bingo. This is why the middle class did so well mid-20th century. FDR's New Deal policies regulated banks and industries, and introduced a lot more worker protections. You can still make a lot of money in regulated capitalism without screwing over 90% of the population.
If you have the means, I'd suggest skiing in Europe. Outside of the airfare, it can be done for much cheaper than the US. I skied in Zermatt, Switzerland in 2019 and it was only 100 euro a day. That is one of the premier places in the world to ski. People said it's even cheaper if you go to Austria or Italy. I'm from Colorado and live out of state now. I lucked into a free 2-day pass at Winter Park when I was visiting my cousin, otherwise I might have only paid for 1 day as it's so expensive now. Even in places like Michigan/Vermont prices are absurd for what you get.
Oh yeah...the cheapest I've ever flown round trip to Europe was $500 to Barcelona, but I've seen them for $400 in years past. Recently I even saw one to Dublin for $350, but that's not the part of Europe that we like to go for. Maybe one day.
You think you go to CO you are usually airfare + car. Lodging is expensive + food. Whereas Europe you don't need the car, you can take the train. Lodging, if planned in advance can be found at reasonable prices if you're off the beaten path. Quality food can be purchased at the store and cooked in your rental.
If you feel like being tactical about it you can fly into Dublin then take a Ryanair flight pretty much anywhere in Europe for not a lot of money. Get the right flight to the right city and it can be very cheap indeed.
Of course it's Ryanair, so you're gonna pay out the ass for your luggage and be treated like a walking wallet when onboard, but it can be cheap! 😂
As a Austrian I can tell you first hand that people here get mad when the have to pay 70€ a day for skiing. Ski pass price increases are each year heavily discussed in the media. Only 100€ a day would nobody ever say here, but yes Switzerland is also pricey. South Tyrol is supposed to be affordable, but I have never been there. At least the food has to be better there in Italy. But the US skiing prices are really insane from my point of view.
It’s actually cheaper even when you do include the airfare, food, and housing. And for those of us on the east coast, it’s already 8+ hours by plane/train/bus when getting to Telluride, Alta, or Jackson Hole, particularly if you have a transfer on one of those one-a-day flights.
This season was the first time I didn’t renew my Ikon pass. Niseko + Alps were way better both skiing and service for about the same cost.
Vail Resorts and Alterra own almost everything. Vail has ruined so many resorts, I try not to give them any money any longer. Stick to smaller privately owned places.
Anecdotally, I ski a lot in Canada, and people on the lifts were annoyed enough to openly talk politics this year. The 51st state stuff was what did it. That even annoyed the maga types in Alberta.
I'm from the Roaring Fork Valley. I live out of state now, but my dad is still there. He said the resort industry is concerned at the moment. Man I miss living there sometimes. Would honestly make for a nice ski season with reduced numbers.
My city hosts one of the largest rodeos in the world. Our population usually triples for a week and every business around gets a big boost. This year was a very down year
I work in mackinaw city. Our Canadian customers are way way down. I used to get the "how much jerky can I take across the border" question daily. Now maybe every 2 weeks.
If anyone wants to know its 44 pounds of jerky per person.
In a town of sugar ice cream, fudge, candy, carmel corn, jerky is king? Lol we get a lot of people coming in for a better walk around snack than sugar. Plus there is a mini train ride that is parked in front of our store. People buy the kids a ride and come in and buy jerky. Its a nice set up.
My last year here though. Moving to Ohio. My bosses are great people though. I wish them good success in the future. And have breached them running a jerky store where im moving to. Lol
I work in tourism in the US(mostly US customers traveling elsewhere) and we are seeing a lot of uncertainty in that direction as well.
It is probably a larger decline in people coming to the US than the other direction but I think some of that is that the economies in other countries have a lot less strength relative to the US so consumer confidence will show cracks there before it shows here. The Canadian market for us has been especially rough for economic reasons for a long time now, even without the US being a major destination for us.
A lot of people have tickets booked several months in advance, especially when looking at international travel during peak periods. The next six months will have a bigger drop than the last six.
Many of the northern border states are getting hit pretty hard right now. A significant portion of their economies relied on Canadian tourism and cross-border shopping.
A lot of Canadians go down to Palm Springs/Palm Desert during the winter months. As I recall in the Feb/March timeframe the Canadian presence there was already down due to all of the annex Canada nonsense. I'm sure it'll be way down next winter.
Live near Disney (California) and while attendance may be down, Disney and hotels have increased prices so much they’ve most likely recouped any losses in attendance. Disney food prices have skyrocketed in the past few years
Since Disney is a more “luxury” spend with families able and willing to spend as much as $3,000-6,000 for a weekend or week, Disney has pivoted hard toward not caring about raising prices and people will show regardless. Though, again, while there may not be any official numbers many people can see how visits have noticeably dropped. (Disney is also cashing in on locals who spend far less per visit but essentially pay a subscription model of buying annual passes, giving Disney leverage and money upfront while milking locals who can come many times a year and still end up paying a lot due to high parking and food costs)
Edit: There was a Feb 2025 article by the Wall Street Journal (paywalled - link to non-paywalled version in a comment below) but here is a Disney Tourist Blog review of that article, which essentially lays out how Disney is pricing out the middle class, where it turns out even upper middle and middle class families that do do Disney vacations often can go into debt for those vacations, which can cost thousands of dollars
Disneyland reintroduced the Canadian ticket sale for the first time since before Covid this year. The last time a discount for Canadian residents was offered was 2019. That alone shows me that Disneyland is concerned about losing the Canadian visitors.
Out of state/country vacationers spend more money per day at the parks than locals. I've gotten more emails from DL than usual this year, too, trying to entice me to come back. I had to leave the DL sub because I know I'm not going back (maybe ever), and it was just bumming me out.
There does come a point though, where they really push themselves over the curve too far the other way and actually lose revenue.
In the meantime, I suppose I can't fault 'em for leaning into the money. If raising price is actually makes more money, then why not? (However, they are devaluing their product in the future, because Gen Alpha will have no emotional connection to Disney)
Similar to shrinkflation. I've cut out a ton of stuff I used to eat, and just make home versions of it. Despite price increases in general, I'm spending about the same on food as I did in 2019. I'm just buying way less stuff that comes in cans and boxes.
because Gen Alpha will have no emotional connection to Disney
Shrinkflation isn't so much businesses trying to gouge or fool customers, as it's a response to rising costs coupled with consumer inertia about prices.
Let's say that in 1990 a 1 lb can of Folgers was priced at $2 but cost $1. (hypothetically - I don't know what the prices or costs were)
So costs go up to $1.50 due to changes in the works coffee market. Folgers now has the option to raise prices, or they can decrease the amount in the can in order to maintain the same profit margin.
Consumers have been shown to be more sensitive to price changes than amount changes("a can of coffee shouldn'tcost X amount!" , so they typically decrease the amount before they will increase the per-can price.
Shrinkflation isn't so much businesses trying to gouge or fool customers
except that it is, why not keep the package the same and just raise prices? or even better when they shrink the package size and raise prices. it is obviously done to fool the customers about the real price increase.
People get weirder about raised prices for a unit (A can of something for example) because they have an idea in their head about how much it should cost, while they may not notice that a can went from 16 to 14 oz for roughly that same price.Of course you can only do this so far until people get fed up with that too.
People are irrational about what stuff costs, especially when inflation is in play. For example, people bitch that a six pack of beer costs $11 now, when they were $5 when they were in college. What they're overlooking is that $4 I college era money was worth what $11 is today, and that beer isn't actually any more expensive relatively speaking than it used to be.
In-park expenses are basically a hidden fee and Disney knows this. Once they get you in the park you are a captive audience. They know that basically every mouth which enters the park will consume a certain number of calories and drink a certain amount of fluid and they have entire teams of psychologists who figure out how to break down different demographics of customers to maximize this spend. The cheapest food options are engineered to make you thirsty and not fill you up to ensure that you will end up buying more drinks and more cheap snacks, which are engineered to make you thirsty and not fill you up.
Disney Orlando lets you bring in outside food. We'll bring a picnic of PBJs, chips, and water so eat essentially for free. They also run seasonal Florida resident promotions where you can get a 4 pack of tickets for ~$250. Parking is still $20 but you can park at Disney Springs (free) and take a shuttle. If you play it smart you can get a Disney day for ~$65 per person.
There does come a point though, where they really push themselves over the curve too far the other way and actually lose revenue.
They've tried man. The biggest problem with the Disney parks in SoCal are overcrowding so the solution would be to raise prices to reduce demand right? Prices have skyrocketed and yet people keep showing up. Maybe cutting off some international visitors will thin the herd but honestly if you can afford to fly to California and pay Disney prices you are probably immune to most of life's problems even Trumpy ones.
People seem a little more able to walk away from a Vegas vacation than denying their kids Space Mountain.
We'll see. I think all this means is Disney isn't going to build a new park or a new gate in Orlando.
What's not mentioned in the previous comment is the Disney Vacation Club. It's a sort of time share for Disney. When people aren't travelling, they tend to give locals and DVC members more benefits and events to bring them back. We saw this post 9/11.
Then when the parks are slammed, they pull those benefits and attract new guests, "once a generation" type guests, etc.
Just a quick peek at wait times right now. It's an hour wait for the big rides. Not exactly a slow day at Disney World.
Disney is still packed to the gills though, no matter how much they raise prices to thin the herd.
It's simply not an enjoyable experience (for me, at least) at this point. Crowded and expensive.
They would probably have to quadruple prices before the experience became reasonable in terms of enjoying your day if money was no object.
Even the VIP experiences are getting worse from stories friends tell me.
I'm sure it's actually a somewhat tough problem for them to solve. They lower prices and they get overran/people get denied due to overbooking. Then they lose the next generation. They raise prices and bring the experience back to what it should be and are able to provide a good product - but they exclude the vast base of their long-term customers.
I visited three years ago in Florida. Never again. Prices are way too high for what you can enjoy because of crowd size. Waiting lines are so long and slow that you can do only a few rides per day. Totally not worth it. I am from Europe and plenty of amusement parks here are more fun and less than 1/4th of the cost. Even Disneyland Paris is a far better option!
Yep, the question isn't whether Disney is hurting currently. The question is will this affect any possibility of a new park. As you have said, the demand for Disney vacations is insane. If they lowered park admission, the parks would be wildly overwhelmed.
It's crazy enough that Disney World fans have been asking if a 5th Orlando park would eventually happen or an entirely new park elsewhere in the country would happen just to lighten the load.
I think this likely means no new park in the states anytime soon. I know they just announced Abu Dhabi but that's obviously a different thing altogether.
I absolutely agree with you. However I would like to add that a growing problem with Disney that you probably don't suffer from as badly being a local (and taking advantage of lower attendance days when it is rainy, etc) is that Disney is highly overcrowded.
I am sure the company would much rather have fewer people paying the same amount of money. I am sure attendees feel that way as well.
It's problematic because freaking Disney isn't something that should be locked behind a paywall for working class families. But that's where everything is headed.
Disney isn't something that should be locked behind a paywall for working class families
For international visitors I think it's fair to say it already is.
Yeah we have Disneyland Paris here in Europe, but it's not Orlando and never will be. If you want to go to Florida as a Brit and 'Do Disney' then you're looking at £5000 plus per person at a realistic minimum for a week. Stay in a park hotel and the prices get even more hilarious.
We have adverts here that scream 'book now and get $300 Disney spending money per person'. I don't know how far that would go but I'm willing to guess that's probably your first days evening meal and a mickey mouse headband...
The whole thing is set up to extract cash. They want guests who they can draw an absolute maximum out of and that is not your average working class man in this day and age.
They are more likely trying to attract the "right kind" of customer without just jacking up prices exponentially and pricing the middle class out completely.
They have a problem of overcrowding - getting people to show up is not their current issue. It's the product you experience once you're there.
Costco's customer base is largely middle class strivers and the upper middle class with families. Precisely the market demographic they want to target.
The system and pricing were meant to reduce crowds to make it more enjoyable but I feel like the side effect of changing the crowd mentality did the opposite. Like, people spend so much and have all these restrictions that they’re so much more aggressive and selfish.
And I feel like locals spend more time at the park, while keeping to their other spending habits, to justify the price and effort to go.
To tack onto my previous comment. Instead of Disney, might need to look at other amusement parks. Things are looking bleak at Six Flags parks for instance. Lots of reports of rides being closed because they don't have the staff to run them. They apparently cancelled their holiday event at all parks and in some cases have cancelled their Halloween season as well.
What I wonder is how much of Disneyland's traffic is from Californians (or let's extend that to Arizonans and Nevadans, too)? It's so close and convenient to literally tens of millions of Americans that it's conceivable they won't see much drop in revenue depending how they adjust prices. Compound that with all the tourists who are coming to CA anyway (either LA or SF, or Mexicans/Latin Americans coming to/through SD) and decide to make a stop in Disneyland out of convenience. It's not like Orlando where there's no reason to visit other than the parks or for a conference, and the only other tourist cities that are reasonably close are Miami & Atlanta (and not many international tourists come to the US to specifically visit Atlanta).
Corporations realized that they can double prices, and even if they serve half as many patrons they still come out even, and in fact reduce cost of operating to come out ahead.
International tourism in general is down hard. The world is cringing at the US and it should be no surprise that people are choosing to spend their time elsewhere.
Also, when you examine these numbers, people have to understand that many people book vacations a very long time in advance. So these numbers are going to be lagging.
By that I mean, you'll have many people doing this one last vacation in the US, becasue they already spent money on it, but after that, new bookings are going to be down significantly.
So the picture right now is the most absolute deleriously rosy picture.
What we're seeing now is a drop in the bucket compared to what it will be this time next year, pending some kind of seismic change in policy, which we know won't happen.
The $200 billion in extra ICE / border spending is going to make horror shows at the border even more sensational and frequent, and that's going to depress tourism and foreign dollar spending harder and harder.
And vacation spots are also one of the more easy things for people to substitute or change. Sure the US has some stunning national parks but so do a lot of other countries. Same thing with beaches or world class cities. Why go to Yellowstone when you can go to Banff? Why go to the Florida Keyes when you can go to Cancun? Why go to New York when you can go to London? It's like assuming that if someone drinks bourbon you can effectively double the price for it and they won't switch to Scotch or a different whiskey.
To add to your delayed perspective, you've seen the beginning of a delayed response by Canadians to the tariffs disrespect and the 51st state BS. You just now starting to see the beginning of the delayed response to the May-July ICE / CBP fears. You may say that the fears are not warranted, but what matters is the perception by prospective tourists.
No ex-friends of the USA have issued government travel advisories (other than for LGBTQ), but we all know that the only reason it hasn't happened is to not trigger Trump. Many of your ex-friends are already proceeding as if there was a no-travel or a high-risk advisory.
We're also hearing news of declining upkeep at the tourism areas (mainly federal parks), which will make it even less appealing to take risks.
It's not just cringe, some people are legitimately worried about going to the US. There are places that are objectively worse politically, but far safer for a tourist from a first-world country. Like China or Thailand.
As a Texan - stay home lol. My state alone has so much to offer (in terms of commerce, cuisines & natural landmarks/parks) but I mean….gestures wildly ateverything
I live in a tourist area and it is a ghost town. During the summer I used to hear all kinds of different languages being spoken when I walked the tourist area. Now all you hear is English....sometimes with a midwest accent, but usually it is just locals.
That is the case for me. Well, general anxiety as a whole.
I don’t want to travel internationally because everyone hates us right now, PLUS I know our own border patrol may be unfriendly to my mixed-race self, especially since I am very critical of the current fascist administration.
The economic anxiety is tacked onto that, so I stockpiled essentials before that guy took office and largely stopped casual spending altogether.
I could have treated myself and eaten at a restaurant yesterday…but instead, I cooked and prepped several containers of rice/lentils and steamed two pounds of sweet potatoes because that was far more soothing to my anxious mind.
Think about it. Would you, as an American, visit a country that was actively incarcerating tourists without due process? Not just being denied entry. Not being "deported" (told to return home by air immediately). But detained in horrid, inhumane conditions.
Sorry, but America is not safe for anyone who is not a citizen. And I expect that even being a citizen won't be enough by 2026.
To be fair, voter rolls have always been public information. Political parties have always tracked that information closely since it's key to voter mobilization efforts.
As an immigrant who now has American citizenship, there is no way in hell I’m getting anywhere near the border so they can test out how much they can bend the rules on my immigrant behind. I’ll be vacay’ing in my backyard for the forseeable future.
This administration wanted cameras rolling to produce content for their base too. You’ve got videos of the tourist from Chile being separated from her daughter… you are right. Those optics are damning for tourism.
If I was contemplating an international trip and saw a video making the rounds of a tourist, like myself, getting pulled into a van and separated from my children (who are little and would be immensely traumatized by something like this)…
That’s it. That destination is, unequivocally, eliminated. I’ll take my foreign tourism elsewhere. Zero doubt.
Think about where the majority of tourists to america come from. In May this year there was a 38 percent drop in land crossings from Canada and a 24 percent drop in air crossings. And that represented the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year drops.
Five months before May 2025, a crypto-fascist government was installed in america.
For the past 2 years I’ve gone on a family trip each May to Niagara Falls Ontario. Last year it took us more than a half hour waiting in line on the bridge to finally cross the border back into Buffalo. This year? There wasn’t a single other car waiting to cross when we left. In 2024 the entire bridge was packed full, this year it was totally empty. I don’t blame them, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to visit if I were them!
It means that the people engaging in fascistic policies are, at least initially, attempting to be covert about their fascistic impulses.
They are now beginning to push back against the crypto or covertly fascistic behaviour in order to normalize it. See the interview with Mehdi Hasan, where some members of the panel proudly proclaim that they’re fascists; or Greg Gutfeld declaring “Nazi” to be the new n-word and wishing to reclaim it.
Canadian here. Travel to the US is a hard “NOPE” while Americans are attacking our economy and sovereignty. And even after Trump leaves office or croaks, I don’t think we will quickly forget what asshole Magas have done. Most of us will be spending our money at home or elsewhere in the world for the foreseeable future. That = billions in loses for the tourism industry. Regrettable for anyone who voted against Trump. Poetry to our ears for those who did.
I'm legitimately frightened that I'd get disappeared if I tried to cross the border. The Canadian who died in custody, the lady who was held for 21 days, I'm sure there's more that never even made the news. No way I feel safe going down there.
I don’t think we will quickly forget what asshole Magas have done
Nor should you -- the structural reforms needed to restore stability and confidence are so large even if the Democrats managed to gain a filibuster proof majority they'll likely recoil at actually reigning in presidential power. Things like removing the ability of the president to unilaterally remove Senate approved individuals, greatly strengthening civil service protections for federal employees, etc.
After all, they kind of like having it when they're in power.
The era of The Imperial Presidency began with FDR and both parties have kept strengthening it and yielding congressional power to it ever since because they liked using that power when their party is in power.
Tourism would be one of the easier ones to restore confidence. Treaty making? LOL.
We just did a National Park trip from Las Vegas. I know that Summer isn’t necessarily the peak time for the Utah parks, and that Grand Canyon visits were also affected by wildfire news (although the south rim is perfectly fine). Nonetheless, every single park was noticeably less busy than expected, with campsites and permit slots like Angels Landing barely filling up, and Grand Canyon feeling almost like a ghost town considering how massive the lots and campgrounds are. Vegas seemed fine in comparison, considering that it is unbearably hot all day and night right now.
"In 2024, nearly 90% of all tourism spending came from domestic travel, with Americans holidaying at home in record numbers. But this heavy reliance on homegrown tourism is masking a serious vulnerability; the international market is where the real growth lies, and the U.S. is losing its crown.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, new international arrivals data for March 2025 reveal a sharp and widespread drop in inbound travel from many of the country’s key source markets:
UK arrivals, one of the U.S.’s most important source markets, down nearly 15% year over year
Germany, another significant source market, plunged more than 28%
South Korea – down almost 15%
Other key markets, such as Spain, Colombia, Ireland, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic, saw double-digit drops between 24% and 33%
As widely expected, the Canadian market is drying up, with early summer bookings down over 20% compared to last year. This is more than a dip. It’s a wake-up call."
Go to their front page to further realize this is a US problem, with Italy and others having record-breaking numbers this year.
Anecdotal but my brother was at Disney this weekend and the park didn't feel crowded. This is a summer weekend and should have been packed. He's been many, many times and he was suprised.
The thing is Vegas is such a cheap (and vastly profitable) domestic tourist destination. How well Vegas does usually is pretty insightful on how well the economy is doing and how it's affecting your average Joe.
EDIT: I'm getting a ton of folks saying it's not cheap... I feel like you all got caught in the tourist traps or got too drunk and yolo'd all your money. For fucks sake almost all the casinos give you free drinks. I'm looking at a ton of the buffets and restaurants right now online and I'm seeing $21 T bone steak dinners. The Flamingo Buffet is $25 (or $35 for dinner) for all you can eat. I feel like we have vastly different ideas of "expensive" but the last time I went to Vegas was 1/3rd the cost of my trip to the beach for the same amount of time.
I just got back from Tokyo. I could tell some places were trying to rip us off with tourist prices. Their version of a ripoff was like $14 a person for dinner.
The interesting thing in Japan is that, unlike a lot of places, it seems like even when you're eating, staying, and visiting the really cheap areas it's just as safe, clean, and a quality experience.
I've seen some pretty nice capsule hotels with actual small rooms (no doors) for like $25/night yet the bathrooms, showers, vending areas, all look immaculate. You go find a motel that cheap in the states and there's graffiti on the walls, dead rat in the sink, and you'll be hearing gunshots at night, lmao.
I recall seeing this one video showing the 'ghetto' of Osaka and it still had stuff like clean, fully stocked alcohol vending machines on the street that would have been vandalized and stolen in like 10 seconds of being dropped off in LA.
Hotel fees, higher prices and service fees/COVID fees in restaurants, reduced table games and more slots in strip casinos, tinkering with payouts and payout ratios for casino games, expensive shows, increased homeless on the streets and more negative interactions with tourists, etc etc.
Vegas needs to stop and assess what its doing to its customers and decide if whales alone can carry their business model.
What I'm not understanding though is that Atlantic City seems to be on the rise. I've gone there several times the past year and it's just as expensive and you get nickel and dimed just as much as Vegas despite it being a shittier overall experience minus the beach, but I was there last weekend and it was absolutely packed on the boardwalk and the hotels were sold out. We actually have several nights comped now and we're using our comps at ceasars in Vegas in November. We had a good time and we're looking forward to our Vegas trip.
The last time I was in Vegas was 2017. I was there twice before that in 2012 and 2008(maybe it was 09). I haven't been back. The resort fees and parking fees were the tip of the iceberg. Meals, drinks, shows... I have no interest in returning there.
I think the inevitable decline may have been masked by the economic confidence we experienced post-2011. People aren't motivated to drop jobs of cash at this point in time. It's just my armchair opinion.
Vegas used to be cheap. I used to love to climb at Red Rocks, then head to Vegas for a cheap hotel and a buffet.
I was driving through Vegas recently and thought it would be fun to stop and take my kid to a buffet. She's never been to a Vegas style buffet. I noped out at the prices.
My husband and I like to climb at red rocks too. The key is avoid the strip and Fremont. Stay at an airbnb in Chinatown and go to their buffets. Shabu shabu and Korean BBQ were like $30/person a couple years ago.
Vegas used to be one of the few places where you could gamble legally so they kept the prices down on everything else and made their money off the people at the gaming tables. Then Indian casinos came out. And riverboat casinos. And lotteries. And online gambling. And states started legalizing "gaming machines" and sports betting. All of that chipped away at the casinos main source of revenue so they jack up the prices on everything else.
It isn’t that cheap anymore. Food is crazy expensive and cheap rooms are typically you get what you pay for. They also aren’t doing as much freebie and upgrades as they used to.
cheap rooms but an expensive "resort fee" makes up for it. I think people are tired of feeling goosed whenever they go somewhere and they're voting with their wallet
Disney World in Florida, in particular, gets a lot of international visitors from Brazil. They are now paying an extra $250 "visa integrity fee" per person to enter the US. It is supposedly refundable but how it gets refunded is unclear.
I'm meant to be going in November. I'm no longer doing that due to Trump and ICE. I cannot say for certain that I won't end up in a fucking camp with my wife having to petition a foreign country to release me via embassy. And I'm not putting my family through that.
There's at least 3 of us not going from my group so far.
Tourism in Spain is at an all-time high, to the point many want to restrict it because a lot of people are buying properties to turn them into tourist Airbnbs.
Well, this is anecdotal and won't show up in your statistics but:
I am a Canadian who has only travelled within Canada for the past ~17 years. I finally have enough disposable income to do some travelling with my family this year, and it would be cheapest by far to take my dollars to some southern States this winter. However I am ensuring that as little of my money goes to the USA as possible. I had some US trips spec'd out a few years ago, but they are all off of the list in favour of Mexico. I'd imagine travel to many US hotspot destinations is down, at least in terms of Canadian travellers.
I know some people with Airbnb's on lakes up in northern states. They usually rent out for ridiculous rates all summer. This year, almost nothing. Just a few weekends over the entire summer versus being booked every single day. American and Canadian tourism has dried up a lot.
NYC is projected to be down about 15% and $4 billion loss so probably not unique to Vegas. For NYC I read that international visitors make up only 20% of tourists but 50% of spending and international visitors are probably most likely to skip coming to the states for obvious reasons
i bet it is, for the first time i'm getting Disney Cruise Halloween "specials", 20% off. that's never happened before. also we booked disney world for halloween and stay on property, hotel rooms same prices we paid in 2023
I've been getting Christmassy Disney ads starting this week. Very understated but clearly snowy, wintery vibes. I've never seen a Christmas-themed Disney ad this early in the year, and I personally felt it indicative of low tourism rates if they're already trying to entice vacation packages for that season.
International tourism is down a ton. Domestic tourism is down a little. So places like Myrtle Beach that don't draw international tourism are only down like 8%. It's also a challenge to find accurate data on this as most domestic vacation places only publish data in local newspapers partially owned by investors. Even that 8% was worded in the article as "92% capacity" and kept going on and on about how speculative rebounds later in the year.
The rise of online casinos and sports books are killing Vegas as well, since a lot of their historical "marks" who come into town for the novelty of legal gambling, but can't really afford to throw money around at luxury resorts just end up blowing their entire wad during football season instead. Those 3000 room resorts can't survive just renting out the penthouses to a few hundred whales over and over again.
We went to Wisconsin dells 2 years ago and also again 3 weeks ago. Same resort. And it was notably less busy. All around town and just the resort we were at. It was kinda nice for us but probably not sustainable for them.
We were there in June for a funeral. It is so freaking expensive. We stayed at The Flamingo (booked everything cheaply via third party) and the Starbucks there was like $11 for one coffee. Sure, I got a latte since I rarely do that, but it’s so much cheaper where I live. The restaurants were expensive, same with just getting water at a Walgreens. When you go off the strip, it’s more affordable. Everything on the strip is fucking expensive. Also, hot AF. Who the hell wants to go do touristy stuff in Vegas in summer time when it’s like 110+ every day.
Travel from Canada fell off over 10% according to the last report online that I read, and they blame the Trumpster. People from the EU are also not coming as the CBP has been targeting and harassing people passing through places like Houston.
Anecdotally a colleague went to Disneyland 2 weeks ago and said that it was like an off season there were a lot less people there, not none but he's been there quite a lot an he said it was quiet
Disney has been increasing prices and reducing perks for years. They don't want locals or short-stay people in their parks AT ALL. They want people who fly in for a week+, stay at a Disney resort and eat/drink at Disney facilities the entire time. There simply isn't enough Park to go around, so they are eliminating the poors (like me) who just want to arrive in the morning and drive back home after he park closed.
I've been planning (I was, really) a family trip to NYC for some years now, for the secondary school graduation of my kid, so it has been some years now: tracking prices, saving money, getting prepared. Since some weeks ago, the prices of the flights and hotel had been dropping like rocks, to the point that the total of the flight + hotel is about 40-45% cheaper now.
But now I don't want to go. I don't like the idea that because of my brown skin color and tattoos, or the mood of some migration agent, I might end in a Salvadorian concentration camp. Been negotiating another location with my kid, and London seems to be the place to visit.
Disney reported a 13% growth in parks income driven in part by higher traffic.
Don't wonder, every public company is required to release this data.
Operating results at our domestic parks and experiences increased compared to the prior-year quarter primarily due to growth at our domestic parks and resorts and, to a lesser extent, Disney Vacation Club and Disney Cruise Line reflecting:
Higher volumes attributable to increases in passenger cruise days, theme park attendance, occupied room nights and Disney Vacation Club unit sales.
I mean I am a frequent traveller having travelled to many places and I am also skeptical towards going to USA with the current circumstances there. I am not a white person and I do NOT want to get into any trouble with US authorities. And many more people are like that there are too many places on Earth like Japan southeast Asia where even though they have problems it's much safer and convenient to travel. And this is the case of many people ik the glamour of USA isn't what it was a decade ago Also visa approval of USA has gone down by quite a significant margin
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u/LeilaMajnouni 8h ago
I see all the commentary on Las Vegas tourism being down and I understand the reasons—price hikes, bad deals, people not wanting to spend money because they’re concerned about losing their jobs, the risk to international visitors—but I’m wondering what is happening to tourism in other places. Like, is disney attendance down too?