Summary
The US tourism industry faces a major decline as harsh immigration policies deter visitors.
High-profile detentions of Western travelers have led to a forecasted 9% decrease in visits, reversing a previously expected 5% rise, and risking a $64 billion loss.
Germany and the UK updated travel advisories following detentions of citizens without clear visa violations.
Canadian tourism also dropped significantly amid tariff threats. Denmark and Finland warned transgender travelers about entry issues.
Experts cite anti-immigrant rhetoric and unpredictable enforcement as key deterrents.
Just imagine a legal tourist in the US gets their wallet stolen.
Once, when people in the US had rights, he would contact the police, who would help him getting in contact with the embassy.
Where would the tourist end up nowadays? In Gitmo? Or a South American prison?
*Central American prison.
It’s not the “immigration agenda”, it’s the “illegal captivity and deportations”.
Nah, couldn’t be the illegal imprisonment and torture random citizens and tourists have been experiencing.
Who in their right mind would want to visit to US at this moment? It’s a clusterf*ck and even with a visa and a return ticket you could be detained.
Man, I was going to go to a wedding there that was super important to me but now I’m SO torn.
That’s a shame! I can understand you’re torn about it
Sometimes they detain people as they are trying to leave the US.
True!
None of the researchers in my lab go to conferences in the US anymore (there is remote participation since covid).
On Friday there was a meeting at work where everyone insisted that they will not go to the US office anymore.
50% of U.S. tourists come from Canada and Mexico.
Not anymore, Canada has its elbows up.
What about their threats to a G7 ally? Does that contribute to the dropoff too?
A 9% reduction seems low. I’m curious to know emigration numbers (I’m getting out of here myself)
Is this what Project 2025 wants to happen? I heard 42% of their goals have already been implemented. Do they think that isolationism and going back to unilateral, strong armed foreign policy will work? And I thought the Nazis were really stupid…oh wait…
Look, I’ve been to the states a good 7 or 8 times and I’m really very fond of the place and the people generally. That includes the, hands down, best summer of my life on a college visa.
I will not be going back there until shit calms down. I just can’t gamble on the notion of spending weeks in a cold, overly bright shithole cell on the whim of anyone on the way through just for a holiday when I can spin over to any country in Europe and just get a smile and a “Welcome” from the border security on my way in.
It just wouldn’t be a rational choice.
edit: I just want to add in that the EU pumps an enormous amount of money on the Erasmus scheme. If you’re not in the know the idea is to get kids in college in one country to do a year of the course in another country in Europe. The only real goal of this is to make people realise that they’re just like everyone else in Europe so we never have an internal war again and it is (along with a few other bits) the best money the EU spends IMO.
I will not be going back there until shit calms down.
Don’t expect it for a long time. You talk about the Erasmus to teach people they’re just like everyone else to prevent an internal war.
Here in the states, I honest to god cannot see how our two sides can come to a peaceful resolution and that terrifies me.
There is no means to a peaceful resolution when one side actively dreams of genociding or enslaving half the other side
Hell, they want to enslave a chunk of their own side. Shouldn’t be long until it’s illegal to be too poor.
I feel like there is a /s I missed. It’s already illegal to be poor here. Don’t have a house/apartment to sleep in? Crime.
Can’t pay taxes? Crime.
Wanna stay warm by burning a Tesla? Crime.
Coming in May myself, anything I should know about how best to behave and handle interactions at the airport to get through safe and quick?
Encrypt your laptop, turn off face unlock and don’t let them unlock your devices.
Unless you go as far as having hidden partitions with a fake benign fascade this isnt good enough. How it goes is they plug your laptop into their forensics software, it reports encryption, they say unlock the encryption, you say no, they deny your entry and confiscate your hardware.
The only way I know of is to format a clean laptop and burner phone with nothing on it and put all your necessary work files in the cloud so you can get them back after getting to your hotel – and even then I’ve heard people denied because it was clear the machine was formatted too recently and they suspected people trying to do this trick and they dont like tricks.
so your burner laptops and phone have to look “lived in” but still benign. It’s much easier just to video chat whatever business youre trying to get done in the usa, and if you’re a tourist there are lots of better places to go anyway.
Wait they can just take your laptop and keep it? I’m not even in their country yet. Crazy
Wouldn’t matter if you were a citizen. Civil Forfeiture is a thing here. If the authorities think your property was used, or was intended to be used in a crime, they can seize it. Your property doesn’t have constitutional rights, so they can literally hold a trial against your stuff, with no legal representation and keep it permanently.
Do they do this to everyone, or are they using the skin color chart to “ramdomly” choose?
A little bit of both TBH.
Get travel insurance too!
Make sure: you have the correct visa, know the address you are staying at, have an exit flight and can prove you have enough money to fund your trip, you can explain the purpose of your trip, prepare to surrender social media passwords and have nothing remotely critical of Trump or the US on it and you have no suspicious contacts. Prepare to have your privacy invaded.
I really wanted to visit this year to for the first time, but instead I’m going to Canada and I’m really excited!
Welcome! Hope you have a lovely time!
Just a warning: both nations are huge, and depending on where you go you’ll have a very different experience.
Generally in Canada, the colder the climate, the warmer the people, so you have to decide how much you value both.
Looking forward to seeing you round here, eh!
Good, this gives me a little hope that the rest of the world is starting to understand how awful the US is, and that there just might be a few actual consequences for that awfulness.
The nature and scenery in the US is honestly stunning, and you’re lucky to have the NPS to make all of it so accessible.
In saying that though; there is natural beauty everywhere you look in the world and it’s very easy, and often cheaper to go elsewhere.
and you’re lucky to have the NPS to make all of it so accessible.
Give it a couple years…
Years is optimistic
Travelling to the USA right now sounds absolutely insane. Like who would even consider it?
You get to the airport. Then you have to unlock your phone and let a random moron sift through its contents.
It’s literally a recipe for disaster/arrest. The cops over there are fucking deranged. Sorry for any good ones. But you’re like the 1%. Police brutality in the USA is shocking to Europeans. I would be scared to be pulled over. Am I getting a ticket or a headshot/arrested for years?
Also I could imagine that if you refuse to unlock the phone, you’ll also be arrested. And by „I could imagine“ I mean 100% sure.
They could plant anything in there or claim they found terroristic messages. No thanks.
The USA are like Russia and Iran now.
And to think that, as a teen, I actually dreamed of moving there. Good lord thanks mom and dad for telling me it’s a fucking stupid idea. I would regret it now.
I’m a us citizen living in Japan and I wouldn’t consider. Unless someone’s dying, I’m staying out. Taking my non-white wife who barely speaks any English is 100% out of the question.
Be safe bro. Do not take your wife anywhere near that shithole.
They need to get their democracy back and prove that they can sustain it. Your wife would be in danger. Good decision by you.
Thank you. I’m also a Canadian citizen so, if family really needed to meet and weren’t dying, we’d probably go to Windsor or something and have them meet us there.
Yes! That’s a good idea. Kind of „neutral ground“ kinda thing. Stay safe and best wishes to you ❤️
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Note this means tourist areas should see prices drop on food in grocery stores because the supply was being created pre-decreased population. The decreased cash flow will hurt businesses and the suppliers will decrease production as to not have to sell at slim to no margins which will bring the prices back up soon enough (or the farmers/distributers will go out of business themselves).
It will give people in those areas a false narrative for the time being though because they will be happy about lower prices and less car traffic… But all the resteraunts will have less patrons, and less money going to servers, less jobs to be had eventually.
I doubt prices will drop as fast as bankruptcies will increase because the distribution chain has that price inflation and it will react slowly. The tighter the margin the more quickly the business will fail.
Employment will also drop quickly because firing people is a fast and easy way to reduce overhead so service quality will dive off a cliff.
But, hey, less traffic! Yay!
Do not under any circumstances come to America. We are experiencing a Nazi take over.
A few weeks ago, I told my Canadian coworker that if she leaves to see her Dad, as she does at least once a year, she might not be able to come back. She just laughed like I was joking.
And nobody’s seen her since…
There’s more than a few Canadians who think it can’t happen to them.
Only 9% decrease? That sounds pretty optimistic.
I’d guess it will be more like 50%. Guess we’ll see.
People book vacations like that well in advance. So there’s a time delay between the bookings and drop. Yesterday I read an article about Dutch travel agencies seeing far less bookings for US holidays. In january they saw a 20 percent drop, but they didn’t have February figures yet.
So by the end of this year, the tourism decrease will likely be much higher.
I mean, it’s only been 2 months. 9% drop vs 5% gain is a 14% shift from expected. That’s impressive, and Trump administration is just getting started.
What I’m interested in is what this does to the international conference scene. I can’t imagine many of them will be hosted in the US this year, even if the event was already booked.
