Tourists look at the sigh bridge in Venice, Italy, August 25, 2021.
Andrea Merola | Bloomberg | Getty images
Caroline Smith, accounting director of Verona, New Jersey, and her husband took their two children to Italy for Easter breaks this month. In the Spanish steps in Rome, they ran into another family in their city. Two other families in the same region also independently visited Italy at the same time, she said.
Families are part of an emerging trend in the global travel industry of 11 dollars: Americans travel abroad en masse, while the number of visitors to the United States decreases.
Foreign visitors to the United States by Air fell by almost 10% in March compared to the same month a year earlier and almost 13% before the pandemic at 4.54 million people, according to data from the International Trade Administration, which is part of the trade department.
Easter week last year took place in March, which changed certain holidays this year. However, American citizens flying abroad increased by 1.6% compared to last March and increased by 22% from 2019 to 6.56 million travelers.
The imbalance could 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 American travel industry, which brings in about 1 dollars per year. The US Travel Association on January 9 said it expected an increase of more than 12% of international tourism spending in the United States this year.
An increasingly level of trade war, very publicized detentions of visitors as well as permanent targeting and residents, as well as the rhetoric of President Donald Trump on the takeover of countries like Canada, as well as a strong American dollar for a large part of this year and travel warnings did not help write the demand of international travelers.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
“This potentially indicates another channel to consider in the evaluation of the effect of tariffs on economic activity,” said JPMorgan in a note on Wednesday, adding that a drop in foreign travel expenses could remove approximately 0.1% of the gross domestic product this year. “The concerns about the detentions of foreign visitors, sometimes by accident, only worsen this effect.”
Samuel Engel, Vice-President Director of the ICF consulting firm, said that “there is no doubt that foreigners find the United States less welcoming” another question is whether the hesitation in going to the United States from abroad is now on international commercial travel.
“Business people do not give agreements to uncertainty,” he said.
United Airlines Last week, international passenger reservations from Europe fell by 6%, while those from Canada fell 9% from one year to the next. Delta airlines said he saw a similar phenomenon.
But the appetite of American consumers for international travel helps to soften the blow of less international tourists and lower than expected demand in American national travel for certain companies, such as United and Delta, which reduce flights to the United States later this year.
“I have traveled in Europe a lot of pre-child, so I tried to do the same with the family now that the children are older,” said Smith, 44, who has a 7-year-old child and an 11-year-old child. “We went to Spain in 2023 and to Portugal in 2024, chosen in part because the flights are short, compared to Greece, which appears on the list.”
Grace Cular Yee, a travel agent based in Virginia, said that many of his clients are considering international trips more than domestic parties because they wanted to withdraw from the end of collegial studies, because their children have largely missed the start of secondary during the tip.
“This is an important step for the whole family,” she said, adding that many travelers get ideas on social networks, more Americans are also inspired by television shows, such as the last season of “The White Lotus”, which took place in Thailand. She said that she had recently planned a trip to France for a mother-daughter high school diploma trip because the daughter loves the show “Emily in Paris”.
United said reservations advanced earlier this month is stable and that premium cabin sales increased by 17%, while international demand increased by 5%.
The president of Delta, Glen Hauenstein, is optimistic that the trend will continue and said that cash sales for international trips take place on the same point last year.
“Sales that arrive at the door yesterday that we record today, because species are very strong for international throughout the summer until September, October,” he said during a call for results on April 8, adding that international sales were up of the year.
Many Americans and retirees who work are on the point with the recent tumult of the market, but rich and aging travelers, especially in the dear aircraft front, help to compensate for this.
“Being a baby-boomer, I can say that without fear of reprisals: there is only a lot of time to go to Europe or almost a lot of time to go see Australia or Japan,” said Hauenstein during a call for results of April 8. “So you have this effect of wealth where this cohort of retirees is richer than any other cohort, even with the last overview, and they want to go and do things.”
It is not clear if a decline in consumer expenses at the rear of the plane or even a sweetness of corporate travel growth is a sign that high -end international leisure travel reservations will also weaken. For the moment, the labor market remains strong.
“Everyone’s life is not fully disrupted, but everyone’s life is on a more tenuous basis at the moment,” said ICF Engel. “The way people manage uncertainty is that they hold decisions.”
