Fewer Western Europeans are traveling to the U.S., according to the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), which reported a 4.4% drop in May.
Eastern Europeans appear to have fewer qualms: Trips from that region are up 4.6%. The net result in the short term is that travel from Europe to the U.S. is down.
These are just the latest figures in a year filled with generally dire news for the U.S. travel industry, which faces a multi-billion-dollar deficit, its worst in more than 25 years.
The NTTO report says arrivals from anywhere in the globe are down 2.8%, and inbound bookings for July are down 13% year-over-year. The only regions that increased their trips to the U.S. in May were the Middle East (2%, for an increase of 5.3% year-over-year) and Central America excluding Mexico (2.9%).
Germany in particular is avoiding the U.S.: The number of German travelers is down 18.7% year-over-year. Argentinians, on the other hand, are flocking to the U.S., with trips up 20.7%.
Student visas from many countries have plummeted, often by double-digit percentages. Yet they’re up 63% from Slovenia, 50% from Latvia, and 100% from Fiji. The Institute of Educational Enrollment expects the drop to result in a loss of up to $4 billion in spending.
The U.S. Travel Association says the United States is now running an annual travel trade deficit of $50 billion, compared with a $3.5 billion surplus in 2022.
“This presumably reflects increased hostility by many foreigners to the U.S., as well as fear of harassment by ICE officers,” Dean Baker, senior economist for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote in an April 30 note reviewing the first quarter GDP numbers.
A strong U.S. dollar earlier in the year might also be a factor, although it has been freefall since January.
Reuters reported that airfares between London and Atlanta were down 55% year-over-year, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. More than 50 routes from the U.S. to Europe saw the average round-trip economy airfare fall by an average of 7%.
With European reluctance to travel to the U.S., airlines are cutting fares headed across the Atlantic in hopes of attracting bargain-conscious Americans. As a result, U.S. bookings to Europe are up 4.3%, according to the travel-booking app Hopper.
“Airfare from the U.S. to Europe is averaging $817 per ticket this summer, down 10% compared to prices last year, or about $96 per ticket,” reads Hopper’s Summer 2025 International Travel Guide. “Fares are in line with prices available to Europe in the summer of 2019, marking a return to pre-pandemic pricing for travel to Europe.”
—Catherine Arnst contributed to this article.
