Europeans ‘cancelling holidays because of Trump’

European tourists are “voting with their wallets” and cancelling their holidays to the US, the head of America’s tourist industry has warned after visitor numbers slumped in the wake of President Trump’s return to the White House.

The number of international arrivals to the US dropped by 5.4 per cent in 2025 compared with the previous year.

“Based on the survey information, the anecdotal information, there are people who want to send the US a message. They want to vote with their wallet. I guess my response to that is we understand that. If people want to send a message to the United States, that’s their right to do, their choice to do,” said Geoff Freeman, the president of the US Travel Association.

The UK is the top market for US tourism, with British holidaymakers spending an estimated $13 billion last year at destinations including Orlando, Las Vegas and New York.

There are signs, however, that British tourists have been spooked by the prospect of intrusive vetting of their social media accounts and alarmed by the recent shooting of the protesters Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

“There’s a legitimate issue of people who want to send a message. And I’m not going to change their mind. If people are upset about something specific that affects them, they’re free to express themselves,” said Freeman.

Freeman said British tourists were still “welcome” in the US despite recent incidents such as the 28-year-old Welsh backpacker who was imprisoned at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre for 19 days.

He said the US had “incredible” national parks such as Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, but acknowledged that the febrile political climate in the US had scared away visitors.

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He said that while videos of ICE and Customs and Border Protection officers killing Good, 37, and Pretti, also 37, in Minneapolis had been “broadcast around the world”, the images were “not necessarily representative” of a holiday in the US and said the football World Cup would be safe. The Trump administration has said ICE agents will play a “key part” in providing security at the tournament.

“Obviously, there are many, many Brits who want to be here and see how England does in the World Cup, see how many other countries do here in the World Cup. I can assure them that experience in the United States will be welcoming. It will be safe,” he said.

The number of Canadians visiting the US fell by 22 per cent last year, and there were sharp decreases from French and German tourists. The number of British tourists actually increased by 0.5 per cent in 2025, but there is increasing nervousness about bookings this year despite the US co-hosting Fifa’s footballing showcase.

This month Disney said its theme parks in Orlando and Los Angeles would be affected by the decline in international tourism. The $187 billion company warned of “international visitation headwinds at our domestic parks” in its quarterly earnings report.

Freeman said he was trying to confront “misperceptions” about coming to the US, such as the Trump administration’s proposal for social media vetting.

Under the plans, British tourists will need to submit their social media profiles for the past five years to obtain an Esta, the visa waiver programme used by most holidaymakers.

Other data collected by the US government would include phone numbers used in the last five years, email addresses used in the last ten years and the places of birth of family members.

Democratic senators have urged the Trump administration not to adopt the proposals.

“That policy has not been implemented. But there is a fear of things that could be done or that they are being done that is contributing to a decline in travel, even as the industry is successful in ensuring that those bad policies don’t see the light of day,” Freeman said.

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Speaking in Hungary this week, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, commented on the attempted expulsion of a Tufts University PhD student who wrote an op-ed on Gaza by saying “no-one’s entitled to a visa”.

Rubio said: “If you enter our country as a visitor, and as a visitor in our country — be it a student, a tourist, a journalist, whatever you want to be — and you undertake activities that are against the national interest and national security of the United States, we will take away your visa. In fact, if we knew you were going to do it, we probably wouldn’t have given you your visa.”