Would-be international tourists unhappy with Donald Trump’s trade policies and rhetoric are set to cost the United States billions of dollars by canceling their trips.
Visits to the US are expected to decline by 5.1 percent in 2025, which will ultimately contribute to a $64 billion loss for the domestic tourism industry, according to Tourism Economics.
The research firm originally forecasted a nearly 9 percent tourism jump this year, a prediction that was revised late last month because of ‘polarizing Trump Administration policies and rhetoric.’
‘There’s been a dramatic shift in our outlook,’ Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, told the Washington Post.
‘You’re looking at a much weaker economic engine than what otherwise would’ve been, not just because of tariffs, but the rhetoric and condescending tone around it.’
Penelope Poole, who lives in the Philippines, said she’s now ditching her planned family cruise in Florida in favor of a lakeside resort in Canada.
‘My siblings and I decided that given the early volatility and hostility of this administration, we couldn’t take a chance,’ the 66-year-old told the Post, adding that some of her relatives would be traveling from Indonesia and Mexico.
‘We were increasingly concerned about personal safety.’
Many would-be travelers to the United States are abruptly canceling their trips or vacations to the country amid domestic turmoil
International tourists and experts cite President Donald Trump’s trade policies and rhetoric as the reason why some are hesitant to come
Both Canada and Mexico, traditionally America’s top trading partners, have been major targets of Trump’s ire as of late.
After twice delaying 25 percent tariffs on both countries, once in February and once in March, Trump plans to resume the import taxes on April 2.
For weeks, Trump has been saying he wants to make Canada ‘the 51st state.’ This, he has said, will be the only way for Canada to avoid tariffs over the long term.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau responded by telling his citizens not to vacation in the US, a piece of advice they appear to be heeding.
The number of Canadians driving back from the US fell by 23 percent in February, while air travel from the US dropped 13 percent from last year, according to the Canadian government.
Overall, this is the first year-over-year decline in visits since March 2021, the second full month of Joe Biden’s presidency, when the country was still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tourism Economics believes there will be a 15 percent decline in travel from Canada this year, amounting to $3.3 billion loss in spending.
Bertha Lopez, who is from Mexico and lives near Toronto, used to cross the US border every few weeks to buy things like butter and cheese.
That’s because those products are still significantly cheaper in the US than they are in Canada, according to government statistics.
This year, Lopez is foregoing the discounts altogether and says she won’t step foot in the US for at least the next several years.
She even canceled an upcoming trip to Arizona to see a friend of hers whose husband is ill. Instead, she’ll be visiting a friend in Canada.
Delta Air Lines, along with other airlines, are warning that domestic travel demand is softening as well
A Disney-focused travel agency is worried that people will soon be canceling their reservations to Disney World amid economic uncertainty
‘All of this talk of making Canada the 51st state has been upsetting. It’s just incredibly offensive,’ the 54-year-old told the Post. ‘So I’m doing what I can: No more Tide. No more Coca-Cola. No more Disney. And barring a funeral or someone in the hospital, I am not going to the United States.’
Canadians’ anger at the US have bubbled to the surface in several public arenas, including at an NHL game last month where fans of the Ottawa Senators booed throughout The Star Spangled Banner.
Canada’s pullback comes right as US airlines are warning of depressed demand for nearly all types of domestic travel, including government, business and leisure.
Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines have all downgraded their guidance in the first three months of this year.
‘People are cautious and they’re pulling back a little bit on travel, not in an organized manner, but just kind of waiting to see what’s going to transpire, whether it’s trade and tariff challenges or macroeconomic policy changes, or just a little bit of the unsettledness of the market that we all see,’ Delta CEO Edward Herman Bastian said at a JPMorgan-hosted conference on Tuesday.
As travel wanes, the leisure and hospitality industry has posted two straight months of job losses so far this year, even as the rest of the labor market is steadily growing.
At the Vacationeer, a Disney-focused travel agency in Florida that works almost entirely with domestic travelers, bookings are up more than 5 percent from a year earlier.
While this sounds good on its face, owner Jonathan de Araujo has a strong feeling that many people will cancel their plans last minute, especially because Disney allows customers to put down just $200 deposits for their trips.
According to Disney, travelers can get a full refund on that money as long as they cancel 30 days before their scheduled booking.
There’s also fear about declining travel to the US from Europe, as Trump and the European Union appear ready to duke it out on trade
‘When there’s trouble in the economy, the first thing people cut is their travel budget,’ he said. ‘They wait until it’s time to pay in full, and they say, ‘Actually I can’t afford this.’ That’s what I’m worried about,’ de Araujo told the Post.
Consumer confidence has been declining fast since Trump took office, sinking to its lowest level in more than two years.
The American stock market is also in turmoil, with all three major indexes – the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq – entirely trading away their post-election gains by the middle of last month.
There’s also worry that travel from Western Europe, which made up more than one-third of foreign trips to the US last year, could suffer because of Trump’s willingness to go toe-to-toe with them on trade as well.
On Thursday, Trump threatened a 200 percent tariff on champagne and wine from Europe, a response to the European Union’s planned 50 percent tariff on American whiskey.
Jens Muellers, 31, told the Post he has reconsidered his trip from Germany to Seattle this summer to visit Washington state’s national parks with his father. Instead, they’ll be going to Canada.
‘It’s a real shame and breaking my heart to see what is happening with the national parks and [its] employees right now,’ Mullers said, adding that it would have been his fifth trip to the United States. ‘We won’t come back to the U.S. until things change significantly.’
