US Tourism
Downturn — February 2026

The USA did a good job at discouraging tourist visitors in 2025. Preliminary figures for December from the Washington-based International Trade Administration (ITA) show that the number of “overseas” visitors (ie all international visitors save those from Canada and Mexico) fell by 1.3% year on year giving a full year total of 34.3m, 2.5% below the prior year levels and 15% below the previous peak in 2019. The trend continues with another 4% decline in January 2026.

The ITA ironically relies on Statistics Canada and Mexico’s INEGI respectively for the arrivals by air and land for the data from the countries bordering the US. The two normally account for 50% of visitors to the US. These numbers are not yet available for December or January. For the the eleven months to November total international visitor arrivals had declined by 5.5% from prior year levels.