Has International Travel to the U.S. Really Collapsed?國際赴美旅遊崩盤是真的嗎?

114.5.24(六)Samedi 24 mai 2025

Amid a global trade war, canceled visas and tourists detained at the border, the signals from the United States have been anything but inviting to potential visitors.

Many news outlets have reported extraordinary declines in international visitors during the new Trump administration, especially from Europe.

But despite some ominous signs, a close look at the data shows that travel to the United States is largely holding up –at least so far.

Nearly as many foreign travelers have arrived at America airports this year as during the same period last year, according to an analysis by the New York Times of entry data collected from every international airport in the country.

International arrivals did drop more than 10% in March compared with last year, but this was largely because Easter fell unusually late this year, pushing back a popular travel window for European tourists. More recent figures from April show that travel over the holiday looked similar to previous years.

Visitors haven’t stopped booking summer vacations in the United States, either, with one major exception.

Canadians, angered by U.S. tariffs and Trump administration talk of turning their country into a 51^st state, really do appear to be boycotting the United States. Ticket sales for travel in summer are down 21% compared with last year.

The decline in Canadian travelers, who make up roughly a quarter of all foreign visitors, is enough by itself to threaten tourism-oriented businesses in Florida, New York, Maine and other popular destinations.

But sales of tickets for summer travel from the rest of the world are down only 2% compared with the same period last year, according to data on the 25 most popular routes from the Airlines Reporting Corp., whose data covers about two-thirds of global airline ticket sales.

Any decline is worrisome for the travel industry, and the situation could worsen if economies are further weakened by the trade war or if anti-America sentiment rises. There is extraordinary uncertainty among travel analysts about whether visitors will continue to come in the same numbers –and if so, for how long.

Part of the explanation for the relatively unchanged arrival figures so far may lie in the nature of the travel business. Many international trips are booked months in advance, and can be hard to cancel, and so even a traveler who feels antagonized by U.S. policies may in the end get on a plane anyway. (Josh Holder, Niraj Chokshi and Samuel Granados)