The U.S. has such a toxic brand that, despite the huge World Cup events, folks don’t want to come to the U.S. on vacation and spend hefty tourism dollars.
Axios reported the new numbers this week, and a CNN report noted Monday the U.S. suffered a 20 percent drop in tourism in 2026 from 2025.
The U.S. Travel Association president Geoff Freeman explained that it isn’t something happening around the world. This significant drop is coming from tourism only to the United States.
“Travel around the world is growing at a 5 to 10 percent clip, and it’s dropping to the U.S. in the same numbers,” he said.
CNN co-host Boris Sanchez asked how it would have been different if there hadn’t been a huge World Cup event, and Freeman agreed it would have been far worse.
“This is a trend,” he explained. “We welcomed nearly 80 million visitors in 2019. We haven’t gotten back to that number any year since. While the rest of the world continues to grow, we obviously need to revisit our strategy to figure out what we’re going to do to turn the tide.”
There were already huge drops in tourism amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now those numbers are falling even more.
It prompted the CNN hosts to ask what could possibly be causing this anti-American sentiment.
Freeman explained that it’s more than just one specific thing.
“There’s a variety of reasons they’re not coming,” he said. “Cost matters. It’s because of the war in Ukraine. You can’t fly over Russian airspace for Asian travelers. Certainly there are some for whom politics matters, and they’re swearing off the United States. I think what’s happening more often than not, though, is travelers are reading the foreign press. They’re seeing these horror stories. They’re worried that if I come here, I’m going to get detained. My device is going to be searched. They’re fearful.”
One story reported by The Guardian revealed 65-year-old British tourist Karen Newton was detained for six weeks after her tourist visa to the U.S. expired.
Becky Burke, a 28-year-old Welsh backpacker, was held for 19 days and led away in chains. The U.S. claimed she had to be detained “related to the violation of the terms and conditions of her admission.” Burke’s mother said she thinks the authorities misunderstood. She said that her daughter was trading work around the house for stays at various accommodations, the BBC reported. Burke’s mother thinks that they considered this “employment” in the U.S. when she wasn’t approved for that.
Still, Freeman said that stories like those are “a misperception of what happens.”
He claimed that the World Cup helped dispel a lot of those stories, but it didn’t help reset beliefs around the world about the U.S.
Given most tourism is to states like California, Florida, New York and Texas, Freeman said that those states are experiencing huge increases in cost.
“Florida is paying a big price for the drop in Canadian visitation,” said Freeman. Canadians began boycotting the U.S. amid President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Freeman explained that it isn’t merely tourism; Canadian business travel has also fallen.
“People who would come to buy a Caterpillar tractor, they would come to go look at another American good. They’re deciding to go to another country right now,” said Freeman. “That’s the loss we’re feeling. Not to mention the fact that these people that come here, we know when they’re here, they enjoy their time. They go home and tell their friends and family about the experience they had. When they don’t come, it doesn’t just cost us now. It costs us down the road because we continue to drive these travelers into the arms of other countries.”