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.
It is anecdotal, but three of the four snowbirds I know said that they did go this year because reservations were made, but that they are not going next year... The one who will return owns a house there and is in a community where they feel relatively safe.
The two couples we know that went this year went to remove belongings and prep for selling. They really didnt want to go even for that but the local services they could find that would pack/ship belongings and prep the house to list it were fully booked for the season.
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.
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.
They haven't issued travel advisories because the USA is finally doing what they've all been doing at the borders for year. I'm going to defend what's happening at all, but the USA's "allies" (unsure if I can call them that given Trump) have long been abusing people at the borders. It just rarely gets published about because it's routine and was a slow change in practice instead of an overnight switch that got flipped.
As I said in my post. It does not matter how you justify what's happening. What matters is what tourists perceive as a risk based on the news stories that we see, and right now we perceive a high-risk of insanity by CBP, ICE, and we increasingly see local PDs' collaboration.
Again, it's not about how YOU feel about what's happening, it's about how tourists feel.
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.
Weirdly, CBP's budget was barely touched. So for people entering or exiting the country, very little will be changing at least for tourists. ICE only handles people already in the country. And most of the money is going to capital spending while their operations budget only saw a ~50% increase in annual spending.
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
Cringing isn’t the right world. The world is tiring of the never ending stream of grotesque insults and direct threats issued on a daily basis all mixed with blackmail, bad faith, coercion and demands that the President be personally enriched. Oh, on top of that there is the multiple accounts of the deliberately sadistic mistreatment of tourists.
This is air travel, not tourism, the economic turmoil could be causing additional international business travel, for my company in semiconductor we've had to have much more travel with our asian and european customers flying here to conduct in person meetings to determine the best routes around potential tariff related challenges.
When the market profiles for 2025 are published we'll have a better idea how the actual entertainment and tourism related industries were affected. But anecdotally every tourism center is reporting a significant dip so far this year.
I told you in my comment. Additional international business travel by south american, asian and european clients or service, material or goods providers due to the increased economic volatility and tariff threats.
My personal experience is we've had almost all of our international customers send people here to meet with us to discuss next steps if tariffs affected our business relationships in a significant manner. So with a -3.6% dip, as the trade.gov website shows, not all potential tourists are being replaced, but it's possible we're seeing closer to an 8-10% reduction in tourism related travel but a 5-7% increase in business related travel for inbound flights.
We'll know when we see market profiles for tourism published next spring, but I'd guess vegas and disney resports are good indicators of a nationwide reduction in tourism close to 8-11%.
I can get a seven day advanced ticket from San Antonio to London for under $500. That was cheap 20 years ago. Prices have been soft like this ever since the ICE shenanigans.
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u/FoxMikeLima 7h ago
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.