As a result of various actions stemming from the Trump administration, Tourism Economics are projecting a 9.4 percent decline year over year in U.S. tourism as of April 2025 in the number of travelers arriving in the U.S. from abroad during 2025, after having predicted 8.8 percent growth in December, with the largest decrease coming from Canadian travelers at a projected 20.2 percent. Data from the U.S. government recorded in March 2025 showed sharp drops in visitors from the following markets compared to the same time last year: Germany (down 28%), Spain (25%), the United Kingdom (18%), Canada (17%), South Korea (15%), and Australia (7%), reflecting a total drop of inbound tourism by 11.6%
U.S Economy Set To Lose $12.5BN In International Traveler Spending this year, making the U.S. the only among 184 economies forecast to see a tourism spending decline.
Las Vegas in June 2025 saw 11% fewer visitors than June 2024, with a 13% drop in international tourists and a 15% decline in hotel occupancy. Local officials cited tariffs and immigration policy as key culprits.
Why are tourists avoiding the United States?
Stronger immigration restrictions and visa policies, including increased fees and stricter screening, have deterred travelers.
Tariffs and trade tensions with Canada, Europe, Mexico, and others have inflamed diplomatic relations and discouraged travel .
Border enforcement and detentions have raised concerns about safety and fairness, especially among European travelers.
Reduced promotion of U.S. tourism—funding for Brand USA was cut by up to $80 million by the U.S. Congress—weakening the nation’s marketing abroad.
Political rhetoric and attitudes have contributed to a perception of unwelcomeness.
Foreign tourists scared away as US ‘puts up closed sign’.
Canada launched a broader consumer boycott of U.S. goods and travel over tariff policies and political tensions. Travel bookings from Canada were down 70–76% year-over-year in March 2025. Air and land trips fell significantly, with land crossings dropping by 23%. Many Canadians canceled U.S. trips—even forfeiting deposits—to travel elsewhere, leading to an estimated $3 billion CAD in lost U.S. tourism revenue. Businesses at the border—like duty-free shops—reported steep declines: 40–80% drops in sales and staffing cuts.
Data confirms a real decline in international visitation and spending across multiple markets. MAGA-related policies—including stricter immigration control, higher visa fees, trade tensions, political rhetoric, and reduced tourism promotion—are widely cited as major contributors. The U.S. is the sole major economy facing a tourism downturn in 2025 among nearly two hundred countries tracked. Sooner or later American businesses and consumers will take notice. That’s inevitable.
Mendocino tourism appears to be weathering broader declines in international travel—primarily sustained by domestic visitors from within California, especially along the northern corridor. Mendocino County draws heavily on domestic (particularly Northern California) visitors, with solid spending trends indicating resilience against international tourism downturns. In Fort Bragg, while origin data is lacking, high visitor numbers at major attractions signal sustained appeal—most likely also from within the U.S. (especially regional drive markets). (see Travel Matters, North Coast, Regional Plan)
Aside from tourism, the large numbers of workers pushed out of the United States by MAGA immigration policies will likely cause enormous harm in agriculture, meatpacking, senior care, construction and more according to Nobel economist Paul Krugman: “We don’t know how many workers will eventually be incarcerated and deported. But undocumented immigrants make up around 5 percent of the U.S. work force. It seems plausible that a significant fraction of those workers will be pushed out, along with a number of legal workers snatched up based, as Trump’s border czar has said, on their physical appearance. Losing large numbers of workers sounds as if it will be bad for the U.S. economy. In fact, it will be worse than you may think. The reason is that immigrant workers aren’t spread evenly across the economy. They’re strongly concentrated in certain industries and occupations, where they constitute a large share, sometimes a majority, of the work force. As a result, the Trump administration’s latter-day Edict of Expulsion will be far more disruptive to the economy than the aggregate number of workers deported might suggest. Consider, for example, agriculture. There are about 1.6 million paid agricultural workers in America, the great majority immigrants. Many of those immigrants are here legally, but it’s all too easy to imagine that anyone with brown skin will be at risk. So imagine that 800,000 of those workers end up being incarcerated and/or deported. That’s a lot of workers, but America is a big country, so it’s only about half a percent of total employment. Not such a big deal, right? Except that the effect would be to cripple agricultural production, inflicting far more economic damage than a half-point across-the-board reduction in labor supply. The loss of those workers would also be inflationary, sharply raising the prices of farm products. You can tell similar stories for meatpacking, senior care, construction and more. Immigrants aren’t taking jobs away from native-born workers. For the most part they’re employed in jobs native-born Americans aren’t willing to do. As a result, ICEing the economy will make native-born Americans substantially worse off. In fact, my guess is that arrests and deportations will eventually do even more economic harm than tariffs.”
These impacts of MAGA policies have not yet shown up in large degree, but they are coming as will higher prices from MAGA tariff policies. To some extent the AI boom has offset some of the downside to growth and upside to prices, but the AI boom could turn into an AI bust given the enormous investment we’ve seen that may prove not to be warranted. In any case, America should prepare for what’s coming. It won’t be tourists and it won’t be pretty.