US Tourism Takes A Big Hit

Tourism in the US was supposed to increase by 8.5 percent this year. That was the prediction being made in December. Now? The most conservative estimates are anticipating a 5.1 percent decrease. That number could increase and somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000 jobs are on the line. In 2023, tourism brought in $2.3 trillion dollars to the US economy. While that number has been steadily declining since 2019, the current trend is more like a drop off a deep cliff. Some numbers show tourism having declined as much as 23 percent since the start of January, and we’re only three months into the year.

What’s the problem? The president’s anti-immigration stance, of course. Every time a tourist gets detained by ICE or other authority, it makes big news in their home country even if it doesn’t get the first mention in US media. For example, German tattoo artist Jessica Brösche was vacationing in Mexico when she decided to travel to the U.S. with a friend. Instead, she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the San Ysidro port of entry and held in detention for over a month. The news was a major splash in German media.

Other reports of detained foreign travelers in the last few weeks have included a German hiker who was allegedly detained and deported despite possessing a B2 travel visa; a Canadian entrepreneur who claims she was arrested by ICE while trying to obtain a new visa; and a British tourist on a backpacking trip who says she was held in an ICE detention center for having a travel visa rather than a working visa.

Neri Karra Sillaman, an entrepreneur expert at Oxford University has said, “Even if you get a visa, you have the risk of being detained or to be denied.” She adds that, even as someone with a valid U.S. visa who’s married to an American, she’s concerned about entering the country under the current conditions. “I’m telling you my perspective as someone who is not a citizen: I’ve never broken the law, I’m an academic, I have a good job, yet when I enter the U.S., especially at this time, I do have a little bit of hesitation. This is coming from someone who shouldn’t have any reason to fear.”

Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, said, “As of 2024, visits to the U.S. have still not recovered to 2019 levels. Overseas travel was down 13%, Canada was down 2.4%, and Mexico was down 7%. So the effects of antipathy towards the U.S. will rewind some of the progress that has been made toward full recovery.”

Sillaman argues that anti-American sentiment could have ripple effects across a number of industries. For businesses looking to host conferences and events with international employees, logistics could become more strained, and some foreign employees may choose not to attend. Additionally, she adds, the hospitality industry is one of the largest employers of immigrant workers in the U.S. If those workers find it more difficult to attain and use H-2B visas, this significant driver of the tourism economy could face significant workforce issues.

“A lot of the people who work in this particular industry are there on work visas, and this creates a potential issue, particularly in places like Miami and New York that are going to bear the brunt of this impact—we’re more likely to see higher prices and lower service levels,” Sillaman says. “This happened during the pandemic, and my fear is that it can become much more difficult in the future.”

The U.S. Travel Association predicted that just a 10% annual dip in Canadian tourism could result in a $2.1 billion loss and jeopardize 14,000 American jobs. Factor in cuts across the Department of Interior affecting everything from National Parks to popular landmarks, and not only is there likely to be a decline in foreign tourism, but fewer Americans are likely to hit the roads to anywhere other than Grandma’s house.

The latest data released by the International Trade Association reflects the fact that overseas visitors are increasingly hesitant to visit the U.S. Compared to last February, ​​foreign travelers were down 2.4% total, with sharp declines in visitors from Africa, Asia, and Central America. Who can blame them? No one wants to come to the US and get stuck, or worse yet, put in jail.