The US lost 4.5 million international visitors in 2025 compared to 2024. Its share of global tourism dropped from 9.4% to 8.7%. International visitor spending fell 4.6%. It was the only country out of 184 analyzed to see inbound visitor spending decline.

Meanwhile, China is on a growth path, gaining nine million visitors and experiencing a 10.5% increase in international visitor spending.

That divergence — global boom, American decline — is precisely why WTTC showed up in Washington, said Gloria Guevara, the new president and chief executive officer of the world’s largest private tourism body. The WTTC represents the world’s largest travel and tourism businesses, and one-third of those members are from the US.

The Elephant in the Room

For most of the briefing, the conversation circled around the numbers — the deficit, the decline, the lost market share. Guevara, the first Latina to lead WTTC, spoke about tackling America’s perception problem in broad terms and pointed to the existence of bright spots like the efficiency of US Global Entry, and the upcoming FIFA World Cup, as part of why the US remains the #1 largest travel and tourism market for now.

Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg, Head of Travel Policy at Chase Travel — WTTC’s lead research partner — urged the room to tell positive stories about America and its small businesses. The Great American Road Trip campaign. The 2026 FIFA World Cup. America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. Someone, we learned, has even been hired specifically to address the perception problem.

Community and small business storytelling matters, as do stories on seamless travel and technology advancing at airports—sure.

But why is no one naming what’s actually driving the US tourism decline? When you don’t name a problem out loud, publicly, and state your position — especially in tourism — you can’t fix it.

As I said during the Q&A, we must be honest: America’s perception problem goes deeper than a marketing fix. Communities of color have been watching people who look like them being detained, surveilled, deported — brutally handled in full view of the world, shipped to detention centers without due process, even when they are law-abiding green card holders and naturalized citizens. People who are native-born or here legally are afraid to step outside, wondering if they’ll be mistakenly swept up. And visitors are afraid of that too.

Families are being separated. ICE raids are making global headlines and flooding social media feeds. Latino residents are living in fear. And people from Latin America, from the Caribbean, from communities with deep ties to this country — and plenty of people who have no ties at all — don’t want to vacation in a place that treats ordinary people this way. No campaign changes that feeling. No road trip itinerary erases what they’re seeing on their screens.

In the middle of all this, the travel industry has remained largely silent. And silence from the world’s largest travel corporations, I added, does not inspire consumer confidence.

I also said to Gloria Guevara that as the first Latina to lead WTTC, I’m sure she understands that communities don’t want to see people who look like them treated that way.

She nodded emphatically — and when I looked around the room, everyone else was nodding too. They’d all been thinking it, yet nobody raises it.

If we are an industry that claims to believe in travel for good, in people-to-people connection, in the transformative power of crossing borders — we all have to talk about it, and find solutions together. Spell out the discomfort and the ugliness in what is happening, to start.

The Data Behind the Silence

The numbers tell a story the industry has been careful to frame only in economic terms.

The US posted a $58 billion tourism trade deficit in 2024. By 2025, that figure grew to $72 billion — Americans traveling abroad in record numbers while far fewer people are choosing to come here.

Tourism thrives on peace. On the perception of welcome. To the outside world right now, the United States is projecting neither. This is not a messaging problem. It is a policy problem with a very human face.

What Needs to Happen

Gloria Guevara is a respected leader in travel who is returning to WTTC at a turbulent moment. And as the first Latina at the top of global tourism, she has a rare opportunity to shift this conversation.

But the industry’s instinct to lead with positive narratives while avoiding the harder conversation has long prevented travel and tourism from having the reckoning it needs.

You cannot market your way out of a climate of fear. The US travel industry employs hundreds of thousands of immigrants. It depends on visitors from the very communities being targeted. So its silence is not neutral. It’s a choice, no matter how risky speaking up may be — and one that consumers around the world notice.

So what should happen?

Name it publicly. Not just in private briefings where everyone nods and nobody speaks. The acknowledgment has to be on record, in public, with the weight of the industry’s credibility behind it.

Take a page out of Explore Minnesota. When ICE occupied the city, their tourism response didn’t hide — they leaned in, reminded the world that Minnesota looks out for its own, that immigrant communities and small businesses are the fabric of the city. That’s leadership. The rest of the industry should be taking notes.

Use the economic leverage. WTTC, US Travel, and the major hotel and airline brands have enormous influence with policymakers. That influence should extend beyond visa processing times — to the climate of fear actively driving visitors away.

Center the human cost. The $12.5 billion in lost visitor spending is significant. But the Ecuadorian father detained before deportation, the Dominican family afraid to visit Miami, the Colombian traveler who chose France instead — those are the real stories of what is being lost.

The travel industry is thriving because more people want to move freely through the world — to explore, connect with others and belong somewhere new. That promise is being broken right now in the United States. And the industry that profits from that promise owes it to the world to say so.

I’ll say this personally, too: after many months of limited bandwidth — feeling the weight of ensuring myself and my loved ones remain safe day-to-day in the US, despite being citizens and legal residents — I’m now saying it out loud too. Because it shouldn’t be our burden alone as people of color and as lawful immigrants turned citizens. It must be shared, in the way Minneapolis residents shared their neighbors’. Even though if you know my work, you know I’m no stranger to speaking up about the industry.

Leadership requires naming the truth first — out loud, in public, with empathy. It’s doable. It matters. And it’s never been more urgent. After that, let’s roll out those impactful stories about small businesses that are necessary, but not enough on their own.

Because when everyone stays silent, talking or advocating behind closed doors, acting like they’re only bothered by the visa restrictions? People will choose other places. Every single time.