Las Vegas misses its Canadian visitors. A city in Florida is feeling a tourism chill from up North. Visitors from Germany, France, and Spain are traveling internationally—just not to the United States. Not like they used to.
And now Chinese tourists may be starting to rethink their U.S. travel plans after a warning from the Chinese foreign ministry, prompted by the denial of entry for a group of Chinese scholars by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, even though they all had valid U.S. visas.
What the data shows
The shift in international travel away from the United States is showing up in booking data. According to a report by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, advance bookings from Europe to the United States for July 2026—which overlaps with the World Cup—have fallen 15.3 percent year over year.
Indeed, U.S. tourism from many markets is on the decline, but the number of visitors to the U.S. from other countries—including the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Argentina—has slightly increased, pointed out Erik Hansen, senior vice president of government relations at the U.S. Travel Association. “There’s a gulf between perception and reality,” Hansen told Afar, identifying Canada as the biggest contributor to the decline in international visitors.
In 2025, Canadian inbound visits to the U.S. dropped 22 percent. Excluding Canada, international visitation to the U.S. was up slightly, Hansen said—by about 1 percent.
For now, the U.S. remains the world’s largest travel tourism market, a spokesperson for the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) confirmed. But Hansen admitted the growth has slowed. While global travel demand rose overall in 2025, interest in the U.S. lagged.
Perception, policy, and safety concerns
A recent WTTC press release pointed to the United States’ proposal to introduce social media checks for visitors to the U.S. as a “key reason why some people are reticent to travel to America.” WTTC research published in January suggests a possible $15.7 billion reduction in visitor spending and a potential subsequent loss of some 157,000 American jobs. The WTTC found that one-third of international travelers would rethink plans to visit the country if the social media policy were enacted.
Seth Borko, head of research at Skift, a media outlet that covers the business side of global travel, highlighted a 2025 Skift consumer habits survey given to travelers from Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Mexico, and India, wherein participants who said they were less likely to visit the U.S. were then asked what was driving their sentiment: 32 percent said tariffs and trade policies would keep them away; 63 percent cited the political climate in the U.S.; and 38 percent cited safety and security concerns.
Advocacy groups are echoing those concerns. This week, more than 120 U.S.-based civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, along with fan groups affiliated with Major League Soccer and the National Women’s Soccer League, issued a travel advisory to potential visitors to the U.S. ahead of this summer’s World Cup.
Their statement warns that LGBTQ+ individuals and travelers whose racial and ethnic group is marginalized in the U.S. may be “most vulnerable to serious harm” in the United States due to current government policies. The signatories include organizations from each of the World Cup’s 11 host cities. Among the evidence cited are the 48 deaths in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since early 2025, full or partial entry limits for travelers from 39 countries, and the recent presence of ICE agents at airports across the U.S.
Beyond politics, cost has always been a factor for travelers considering the U.S., Hansen said—especially now, as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East increases airfares and baggage fees. Concerns about visa access and entry procedures are also shaping decisions, even as visa wait times have dropped significantly in many key markets and proposed ESTA visa application changes aren’t likely to go into effect before the World Cup games.
Headlines about tourists being detained or questioned at the border, even if uncommon, can quickly influence perception. What all of this means for the upcoming FIFA World Cup, cohosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, remains to be seen.
Hansen said it’s simply too early to draw firm conclusions about World Cup visitation numbers: “The data isn’t clear yet.” Canada is set to host the tournament’s early rounds, and if the country’s team advances, Hansen predicts that Canadians may venture across the border after all.
