00:00The Trump administration's multi-front tariff wars and escalating rhetoric are turning off
00:05international tourists, according to a growing body of travel data.
00:11President Trump's tariffs, imperialistic rhetoric, and viral headlines of foreigners
00:16with legal tourist visas and green cards being detained by U.S. immigration officials are
00:20quote-unquote stacking up as significant hurdles for the U.S. travel industry, and setting
00:26international travel back several years, according to Adam Sachs, president of Tourism
00:31Economics, a nonpartisan Oxford economics company tracking tourism statistics.
00:38While Tourism Economics' end-of-2024 forecast had projected 9% growth for international
00:44inbound travel to the U.S. this year, the organization has revised its baseline forecast
00:49for a year-over-year drop of 5%.
00:53Tourism Economics is forecasting total U.S. travel spending, representing domestic and
00:58inbound spending combined, will be 3.7% lower than its original prediction from December,
01:04amounting to an estimated $64 billion loss this year for the U.S. economy.
01:10Inbound travel from Canada and Mexico are particularly important, accounting for 36
01:15million tourists in 2024, and representing roughly half of all foreign travel to the
01:20U.S.
01:22OAG, a global air traffic data provider, announced Wednesday that airline bookings from Canada
01:28to the U.S. are down 70% compared to the same period last year.
01:33In early February, the U.S. Travel Association warned that even a 10% reduction in Canadian
01:39inbound travel would translate to $2.1 billion in lost spending, and would jeopardize 140,000
01:46jobs in the hospitality sector.
01:49Preliminary data from Statistics Canada for February showed a 23% drop in cross-border
01:55car travel from Canada to the U.S.
01:59For more on this story, read Suzanne Rowan Keller's article linked in the description.
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