Marcelina Gómez thinks this summer is good, but not as good as others during the six years she has worked as a waitress at a Japanese restaurant in Anaheim. On Thursday afternoon, there were several empty tables at the place, just a few meters from Disneyland, the tourist heart of this city south of Los Angeles.
“You can tell there are fewer people on the weekends. Last year, we could barely keep up, and this year they haven’t hired more waiters,” says the 51-year-old Salvadoran. She believes the climate of fear unleashed by immigration raids in the area is partly responsible for the slowdown. In the Los Angeles metropolitan area, multiple businesses have felt the slump in the U.S. tourist summer season.
The decline can be seen in immigration lines at U.S. airports and tourist spots across the country. Donald Trump’s policies have significantly reduced the desire to visit the country. Foreigners have preferred to look for new destinations this summer, causing concern in some sectors and cooling local economies.
The downturn has forced slight cuts to annual forecasts in the hotel industry. “Uncertainty and inflation, along with tough competition and changing travel patterns, have caused lower demand,” says Amanda Hite, president of STR, an industry analysis firm. Growth in this sector has fallen by 0.6% annually due to the uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariff war. Consumers are now opting for caution in spending. Additionally, the number of international visitors has dropped thanks to the America First measures pushed by the White House.
Las Vegas is especially sensitive to the drop in international tourism. Authorities in the city of casinos and neon lights say they received just over three million tourists in June 2025, about 400,000 fewer people than the same month last year. This represents an 11.3% year-over-year drop in the country’s fifth most visited city. The trend is confirmed by the local airport, which registered a 6.3% decline in travel in June compared to June 2024.
A Las Vegas resident posted a video last week claiming to have never seen the airport so empty, the eighth busiest in the country. “I’ve not seen another person since I parked. This is really weird,” Jake Broe said in his video.
The terminal received five million visitors last year. This year, however, it has seen five consecutive months of declining passenger numbers. Residents and tourists have sent similar messages from inside hotels or from the Strip, the popular avenue that serves as the tourist center, which looks half-deserted these days.
Some casinos and hotels have sweetened their offers to attract tourists. They have lowered room prices and promised to temporarily eliminate other fees. Others have chosen not to charge for parking and offer late check-out at no additional cost.
The Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, in March.Kevin Carter (Getty Images)
Hotel occupancy dropped nearly 2% in June, the latest month for which figures are available. New York managed to stay at the top as the most visited destination. But Houston, Texas, recorded a 20% decline compared to the same period last year due to a combination of factors, including an unusual surge in hotel room demand in June 2024 from victims displaced by Hurricane Beryl.
The major airports serving Miami, Florida, are also seeing a decline after years of growth. They closed the first half of the year down for the first time since 2017. So far this year, they have recorded 400,000 fewer passengers compared to the first six months of 2024, a 1.5% drop. Restaurants report experiencing one of their “worst summers” in a long time due to uncertainty around Washington’s tariff policies and immigration police crackdowns on Latinos in the area.
A wake-up call for Trump
However, this trend is not new. It began to show signs in March, when the World Travel and Tourism Council said the world’s largest economy was “heading in the wrong direction” because Trump administration policies seemed to put up a “closed” sign for the rest of the world. Since then, a drop in passengers traveling to the U.S. from the U.K. (15%), Germany (28%), and countries like Spain, Ireland, Ecuador, and Colombia has become noticeable, with declines ranging between 24% and 33%.
The organization projected that the U.S. will earn around $169 billion from tourism this year, 22.5% less than in 2024. It is the only country among 184 economies analyzed expected to show a decrease in this type of revenue. “This is a wake-up call for the U.S. government,” said Julia Simpson, the council president.
International tourists have turned their backs on some of their favorite U.S. destinations. Avianca, the Colombian airline, is reporting double-digit declines (12%) on its routes to Miami, despite Colombians being the largest foreign group to land in the Florida city last year, according to Miami International Airport figures. The drop in Dominican tourists, the third-largest group in 2024, was more pronounced at 20%. Domestic tourism from other states to Florida also declined in the first half of the year.
Canada’s boycott of the U.S. deserves special mention. Air Canada reported that traffic on several of its routes to the southern neighbor has fallen since Donald Trump began attacking the country and suggesting it should become the 51st state.
The number of Canadians flying from the U.S. to Canada dropped 22% in June, according to official Ottawa government figures. Border crossings by land into Canada from U.S. cities have decreased by 33%. The worst part is that summer is far from over.
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