International Tourists Are Avoiding US Travel Amid Political Tensions

A new report from Bloomberg Businessweek indicates that the United States may be poised for a widespread slump in visitation from international travelers.

Travelers from countries that are historic allies of the United States are increasingly being scared off by the growing number of visitor detentions at U.S. borders since Donald Trump has returned to office, according to the same report.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staff have been focusing greater energy in recent weeks and months on reviewing travelers seeking to enter the country. And the extreme nature of the resulting detentions has rattled would-be visitors.

In response to the penchant for traveler detentions under the Trump Administration, a number of countries have issued advisories about visiting the United States. That list includes Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Hilton Beckham, assistant commissioner for public affairs at CBP, told Businessweek that while lawful travelers should not be worried about the stepped up enforcement, those who are seeking to enter the country “with fraudulent purposes or malicious intent” should not even try to do so.

Concerns about navigating the U.S. border process are likely just a part of the problem.

Its been reported for several weeks now by media, including TravelPulse, that Canadians are increasingly choosing to forgo travel to the United States. The change comes in response to the Trump Administration’s rhetoric about annexing Canada and making it the 51st state, along with the excessive tariffs the U.S. president has implemented for Canadian goods.

The decision among Canadians to avoid the U.S. amid such policies has triggered a sea change in transborder bookings.

Data from aviation analysts at OAG, reported by TravelPulse in late March, shows that from April to September of 2025, transborder bookings for Canadians seeking to visit the U.S. are down more than 70 percent compared to 2024. OAG called that startling decline in Canadian visitation a “collapse” in what was once a booming source market for the United States.

Reached for comment regarding the troubling picture emerging surrounding international visitation to the U.S., industry experts had mixed responses. When it comes to Canadian visitors in particular, the tanking market does not bode well for the U.S. economy.

“According to the U.S. Travel Association, over 20 million Canadians visit the U.S. each year, so any drop in travel from our neighbors to the north means a significant impact to the travel economy,” Julian Kheel, founder and CEO of Points Path, a platform that helps travelers use frequent flyer miles to book trips, told TravelPulse. “U.S. airlines have also seen softening domestic demand in recent weeks, which could lead to a double whammy as both Americans and overseas visitors cut back on U.S. travel”

The Coconut Traveler, a Hawaii-based travel company that specializes luxury custom journeys to the Hawaiian islands experienced a robust start to 2025, including from Canadian travelers. There was renewed demand for both luxury travel accommodations and also private experiences across the Hawaiian islands.

That positive momentum however has evaporated over the past few months.

“Within days of the administration’s talk about Canada’s annexation, we saw our first Canadian booking fall through,” Debbie Misajon, owner of Coconut Traveler told TravelPulse. “The [travel] agent stated that her [Canadian] clients felt uncomfortable and uneasy planning a trip to the USA with all that’s going on in our politics with Canada.”

The Canadian travelers opted to go to Portugal instead of Hawaii, says Misajon. And that’s not all. The Canadian travel agent also shared fears with Misajon that some Canadian airlines may begin suspending flights to U.S. destinations amid the growing political tensions between the two countries.

Tim Hentschel, co-founder and CEO of HotelPlanner, a travel technology company, said his platform has seen Canadian bookings for U.S. hotels halved in 2025 compared to 2024. Perhaps even more staggering, bookings on the platform from German travelers have declined by a 300 percent.

At the same time however, visitation from other international source markets appears to be increasing. U.S. hotel bookings from British and Irish travelers, for instance, have ticked upward by over 30 percent compared to 2024, according to Hentschel.

“Travel is down slightly year-over-year to the USA, but it could be due to a strong dollar, high inflation, and retaliation to tariffs,” Hentschel said. “People tend to travel with their pocketbooks, and where the currency is good, right now the U.S. does not have that value.”

International travel insurance provider Insured Nomads has yet to witness any decline in visitation to the U.S. But that reality may be very much linked to continued reports of trouble at U.S. borders, a company executive told TravelPulse.

“We are seeing a continued demand, steady and not decreasing, for Europeans coming to the USA for both leisure and business travel,”  Insured Nomads CEO Andrew Jernigan said. “Whether the dynamic shifts depends on the actions of CBP employees. Are we a hospitable nation or a angry and hostile host?”