This global travel disruption couldn’t have come at a worse time for the US. The country is co-hosting the Fifa World Cup this summer, celebrating the centenary of Route 66 and marking its 250th year of independence in 2026. In a normal year, any one of those milestones would give the American travel industry reason to celebrate. Instead, the nation is contending with a mix of bad perception and unpopular policy that saw its 2025 tourism decline by 5.4%, even as the rest of the world grew its international tourism by 4%, according to the World Tourism Barometer. Canadian visitation to the US dropped by 22% in 2025 compared to 2024, the steepest decline of any market.
A partial government shutdown has caused queues at some US airports to take hours
