The number of the week? Negative fourteen percent. That’s how much inbound international travel to the United States has dropped. Right before the summer football matches. Right before the World Cup.
It is bad.
This episode of the Skift Travel Podcast digs into why tourists abroad are ghosting America, how politics and price tags are reshaping demand, and whether TikTok is about to hijack your vacation bookings. Plus, the tension brewing between major hotel brands and the independents trying to survive their expanding empires.
Seth Borko and Sarah Kopit break it down. No fluff.
The Brand Is Broken
Negative fourteen percent for last month. And we are already halfway through spring, inching toward Memorial Day.
Sarah laughs, but barely. She shouldn’t. The trend line is stubborn. April 2025 is down compared to April 2024, yes, but Easter timing played a role. Technicalities aside, the macro picture is bleak. The US just fails to pull people in anymore.
It isn’t about the agency called Brand USA. It’s about the brand of USA.
Sarah was just in Asia. People there don’t care about the beaches or the malls. Once they learn she is American, the conversation pivots. Instantly. To chaos. To the current state of affairs here at home.
Is it safe? That’s the biggest question she gets. Surprisingly, really. Especially since she lives in Brooklyn. In Carroll Gardens. Where the flower boxes are pristine and spring is actually blooming. She’s safe. You are safe. The statistics back it up. NYC is one of the safest large cities in the world, despite the reputation.
But perception isn’t logic. Perception is what travels. And right now, the broadcast from America screams instability. The news feeds the fear, the fear fuels the hesitation. It creates a feedback loop that statistics can’t easily dismantle.
Why They Stay Home
Skift did a survey last year around Inauguration Day. We haven’t repeated it because the data is so clear it feels redundant. Critic us if you want. The reasons are boring and stark.
- Politics. Tourists don’t want to fund the current political climate.
- Economic Policy. Tariffs, trade wars, inflation. If you believe the US is driving global economic distress, you won’t spend your money there.
- Safety. Stories about borders and violence.
- Price. It costs too much.
Jet fuel has doubled in price. Airline tickets reflect that immediately. The US is structurally expensive. If you’re in Europe or Asia, you have cheaper options nearby with shorter flights that burn less fuel. The delta is now huge. The brand is damaged. The welcome is gone.
And yet, here comes the World Cup. Perfect timing? Or poor timing?
The World Cup Reality Check
First match: June 19.
Seth thinks it’ll be a “success” in the marketing sense. Everyone will claim victory. But what’s the actual lift? The delta between what we have and what we should have?
May is messy data due to Easter shifts. June is the real test. The data for June drops in July. That’s when we’ll see if the event saved us.
The regional breakdown tells the real story, though.
- Canada: Return trips were up 1.4%. A gain! But only because they were down 30% last year. That’s a base effect, not a boom. Canadians might be forgiving. Or not. They can drive here, so cost matters less.
- China: Basically flat. Down a tiny bit technically, but China is recovering. They’re signing visa-free deals with the EU and the UK. The long-haul market is waking up.
- Japan: Up 5%.
- EU: Deep in the negative teens. 10 to 15% down consistently.
The Europeans and Canadians are holding a grudge. The damage is significant.
The China Variable
Here is where it gets weird. President Trump landed in China on Tuesday. With a caravan of tech billionaires.
Seth is watching closely. Will we get a visa-free agreement? The US has a loophole now where Americans can visit China for a week without a visa if they don’t fly back directly. It’s a hack, not a policy. But Chinese diplomats are everywhere, normalizing these deals.
If Beijing and Washington agree to lift barriers, the tourism math changes. Chinese outbound travel is strong. If they target the US, the numbers shift. If not, Europe stays angry. Canada stays neutral. And the US remains stuck in this slow decline.
There is also a North America angle. The World Cup isn’t just US. It’s Canada and Mexico too.
Could people fly to Toronto for the games and skip New York entirely? Possibly. A weird kind of border-averting tourism. Seth doesn’t know if it will happen, but he can imagine the headline. “The North American Trippers Who Never Entered the States.”
It leaves the question open. Is the US brand recoverable? Or do we just keep losing fourteen percent of the market at a time?
“I think the brand’s been damaged. The affordability is anissue. The welcome-ness isn’t there.”
