Tourists look at the sigh bridge in Venice, Italy, on August 25, 2021.
Andrea Maryola | Bloomberg | Getty images
Caroline Smith, accounting director of Verona, New Jersey, and her husband took her two children to Italy for Easter holidays this month. In the Spanish steps in Rome, they ran into another family from their city. Two other families in the same area also visited Italy at the same time, he said.
Families are part of an emerging trend in the world travel industry of $ 11 billion: Americans travel abroad in mass, while the number of visitors to the United States is falling.
Foreign visitors from the United States by air fell almost 10% in March since the same month of the previous year and almost 13% before the pandemic to 4.54 million people, according to data from the International Trade Administration, part of the Department of Commerce.
Easter week last year was in March, which caused some vacation to change this year. However, US citizens who flew abroad increased 1.6% since last March and have increased 22% from 2019 to 6.56 million travelers.
The imbalance could further deepen the gap of more than $ 50 billion between what the United States generates through travel and tourism services and what Americans spend abroad. It is a concern for the US travel industry, which brings approximately $ 1 billion per year. The United States Travel Association on January 9 said it was waiting for an increase of more than 12% in the spending of international tourism in the United States this year.
A commercial war again, again, high -profile detentions of visitors, as well as the holders of permanent visas and residents, together with the rhetoric of President Donald Trump about taking care of countries such as Canada, along with a strong US dollar for much of this year and travel warnings have not helped the demand of international travelers.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
“This potentially points to another channel to consider when evaluating the effect of tariffs on economic activity,” JPMorgan said in a note on Wednesday, added that a decrease in foreign travel spending could restore around 0.1% of the gross domestic product this year. “The concerns about the arrests of foreign visitors, sometimes by accident, only aggravate this effect.”
Samuel Engel, senior vice president of the ICF consulting firm, said that although “there is no doubt that foreigners are finding the United States less welcoming”, another question is whether the hesitation of traveling to the United States from abroad is now appearing on international commercial trips.
“Business people have no supply ink against uncertainty,” he said.
United Airlines Last week he said that international passenger reserves that originated in Europe have dropped 6%, while those that originated in Canada have dropped 9% year after year. Delta airlines He said he was seeing a similar phenomenon.
But the appetite of American consumers for international trips is helping to soften the blow of less international tourists and a weaker demand than expected on national trips of the United States for some companies, such as United and Delta, which are reducing flights within the United States at the end of this year.
“I traveled many pre-kids in Europe, so I've been trying to do the same with the family now that children are older,” said Smith, 44, who has a 7-year-old boy and an 11-year-old boy. “We went to Spain in 2023 and Portugal in 2024, chosen in part because the flights are short, compared to Greece, which is on the list.”
Grace Cular Yee, a travel agent based in Virginia, said that many of their clients are considering international trips more than nationals because they want to splash on university graduation trips, since their children were largely lost the graduation celebrations of the high school during COVID.
“This is an important milestone for the whole family,” he said, adding that, although many travelers get ideas from social networks, more American are also inspired by television programs, such as the last season of “The White Lotus”, which was established in Thailand. She said she recently planned a trip to France for a graduation trip of the Mother-Hija high school because the daughter loves the show “Emily in Paris.”
United said that advanced reserves earlier this month are stable and that premium cabins increased 17%, while international demand has increased by 5%.
The president of Delta, Glen Hauenstein, is optimistic that the trend will continue and said that cash sales for international trips are ahead of the same point last year.
“Sales that come to the door from yesterday that we are recording today as cash are very strong for International during the summer until September, October,” he said in a profit call on April 8, adding that international sales increased the year.
Many Americans and retirees who work are nervous with the recent tumults of the market, but rich and older travelers, particularly on the expensive front of the plane, are helping to compensate for that.
“Being a Baby Boomer, I can say this without fear of remuneration: there is only a lot of time to go to Europe or almost a long time to see Australia or Japan,” said Hauenstein in a profit call on April 8. “So you have this wealth effect in which this retiree cohort is richer than any other cohort even with the most recent summary, and want to do things.”
It is not clear if a setback in consumer spending at the back of the plane or even a certain softness in the growth of corporate trips is a sign that high -end international travel reserves will also weaken. For now, the labor market is still strong.
“Everyone's life is not completely interrupted, but everyone's life is in a more dim base at this time,” said ICF. “The way in which people handle uncertainty is to retain decisions.”
