Lower demand for flights: European travellers cancel US visits

Some more key facts from Forbes - wider report focus than Europe only:

17% fewer Western Europeans visited the U.S. in March compared to the same period last year, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), the agency within the U.S. Commerce Department that tracks tourism statistics.

The governments of the two largest European markets—the United Kingdom (down 15%) and Germany (down 29%)—warned citizens last month about traveling to the U.S. due to the possibility of detention by American federal immigration authorities.

March inbound tourism volume also dropped year over year from the Caribbean (down 26%), Central America (down 24%), South America (down 11%), Africa (down 10%), Oceania (down 8%) and Asia (down 1%), per NTTO’s data.

The only two regional markets to send more tourists to the U.S. than last year were the Middle East (up 21%) and Eastern Europe (up 2%), which together make up roughly 7% of total inbound visitors to the U.S.

Arrivals from Mexico by air were down 5% in February and 23% in March year over year, while NTTO data on car arrivals is not yet available.

The NTTO has not yet reported inbound data from Canada for February or March, but Statistics Canada reported a 23% year-over-year drop in car travel and a 2.4% drop in air travel to the U.S. in February.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/04/09/european-travel-to-us-plummeted-in-march/

This summer the trail in the Grand Canyon may have a bigger proportion of people speaking English than usual!

So travelers looking for cheap flights are recommended to check prices
of the main airlines of these countries, e. g. SAS, Lufthansa,
Norwegian; and also the US airlines servicing the main airport hubs of
those countries, e. g. Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Madrid, ...

Naaaa, I would check Google flights, or similar, to my end destination. As of a couple of weeks ago the prices to Europe in the Summer and Fall were not great which might indicate that the numbers above are not telling the whole story on tourism. Things could change, so I am waiting on buying for my September trip.

Assuming that most of the drop is tourists and not business related and assuming that all those people are still going to go on holiday, Europe could be more crowded this Summer. But I don't see that here .... yet.

And the CBP appears to disagree with the numbers above. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/travel I set the form to "Travelers" and "Air". March 2024 was 12.1 million and March 2025 was 12 million ... I must be interpreting something wrong (very possible for me) as the new article and the CBP dont appear to jive.

But if all plays out the way the media wants it to, then avirosemail could be correct and this could be a great year to rediscover the US park systems.

And the CBD appears to disagree

No, their published dataset for Traveler & Conveyance is from 03/03/2025, so not actual enough.

I would check Google flights, or similar, to my end destination.

Feel free but different sales channels have different prices and also the staff at the gates see where is room for upgrades (no sales commission means more profit for the airline - handle these customers very friendly).

Feel free but different sales channels have different prices

I am only comfortable buying from the airline. So what ever the airlines charge on their website is what it cost for me. Good luck with the other "sales channels".

The first article is behind a pay wall, the second one i didnt read, I just went to their data link. Looks like tourism to the US, for the year, is up still. But again, I'm not highly edutatted so I am probalby reading it wrong. https://www.trade.gov/i-94-arrivals-program?anchor=content-node-t14-field-lp-region-2-1

All the highfalutin science and analysis aside, ticket prices to the US still arent good, hotel prices in the US still arent good and Europeans dont appear to be rerouting their holidays to Europe.

EDIT: The second one i didn’t read because i went to two of their linked references to find that the author was okay using very poor journalism as a source, so the article is not reliable as a tool for eduitation on the subject.

No, in spite of what you may see different sales channels do not have different prices. There is no cheap airfare, fairy, and the days of the airlines having to give those sales channels tickets to sell went away with the Internet. What those different sales channels are doing is doing it’s either creative ticketing, or offering something that can’t deliver. If you can’t find an airfare on the airline website, take your fingers off the keyboard before you do a lot of research on your great deal. Go over to Tripadvisor type in the name of the company and start reading, about 90 % of the time and you will see hundreds and hundreds of people who have been ripped off because that they thought they found the cheap airfare fairy.

I’m also not 100% sure this is going to lead to a decrease in airfares. I think it could lead to a decrease in capacity, smaller planes, less frequent flights, etc. it’s probably going wind up being a combination of those two things but airlines have gotten better about just cutting capacity over fire selling empty seats.

Carol, even with Google Flights its just a way of figuring out who is flying what routes. I can imagine blindly opening airline websites looking for planes to where I want to go. About a fourth of the time when clicking on the airline company "buy" link at the bottom you find out that the Google Flights price isnt right. I dont blame google, i think the airlines prices are too dynamic for google to keep up.

But everything you said is spot on .... as usual.

It’s a nice idea, lower fares, but I am seeing for summer travel the same $1000 nonstop to hubs, $1200 for connecting flights that I always see.

What isn’t well documented is what is the increased impact of greater scrutiny on general tourists, if any. Are these incidents new or just getting media coverage for the first time?

Unemployed young people have been refused entry to US/Canada/UK/Australia for decades. I was almost refused entry to Australia once, had the half hour interview in the special room, eventually got approved entry but it was a tremendous effort of persuasion, including arguing whether stocks on a recent brokerage statement were liquid assets or not.

It's just starting now. It won't be long before it's clear what's happening. Not worth arguing about it at this point.

edit: I'm seeing anecdotal evidence on HN of people cancelling/refusing Business trips to the US as well as the tourist impact. Hard to say if it's anything other than noise at this point.

Interesting data. However, I'm not surprised. If they do come they will see we are a large country with a great variety of opinions on government and politics.