We Are Facing A “Tourism Industry Apocalypse” As International Travelers Avoid The USA

Why have major tourist destinations all over America been so depressingly quiet in 2025? Normally tourism accounts for close to 10 percent of U.S. GDP, and that makes it a critical pillar of the U.S. economy. We witnessed an enormous downturn during the early days of the COVID pandemic, but that was just temporary. Now we are witnessing a similar downturn, but this time we don’t have a pandemic to blame. Needless to say, the overall economy is steadily moving in the wrong direction, and that is certainly affecting tourism. But as you will see below, there are other factors that are very much within our control that are driving tourists away.

When I claim that the U.S. is experiencing a “tourism industry apocalypse”, I am not exaggerating at all.

This summer, many of the country’s top tourist destinations were so empty that they resembled something out of “a dystopian novel”…

Imagine walking into what was once America’s most vibrant tourist destinations and hearing nothing but the whisper of wind through empty corridors. This isn’t a scene from a dystopian novel — it’s the stark reality of US tourism in 2025.

The summer that was supposed to be bustling with laughter, excitement, and packed attractions has turned into a ghost town of economic uncertainty. Take Florida, once the entertainment paradise of America, where over 15,000 Walt Disney World employees now face the terrifying prospect of reduced hours or complete layoffs — right in the middle of peak tourist season.

In the past, I have written about how a vacation to Disney World has become so ridiculously expensive that it is now out of reach for most middle class families.

But that doesn’t fully explain why international visitors to Florida fell by 38 percent in just one year…

The numbers are brutal. International visitors to Florida have plummeted by a staggering 38% in just twelve months. Hotel bookings from Orlando to Miami have nosedived by 27%, creating what experts are calling a “post-pandemic crisis without a pandemic”.

But this isn’t just about empty hotels and quiet theme parks. It’s about the human stories behind these statistics. Workers who built careers around tourism are now facing an uncertain future. The problem runs deeper than just fewer tourists — it’s about systemic vulnerabilities in tourism-dependent economies.

Many would argue that conditions in Las Vegas are even worse.

There are thousands upon thousands of empty hotel rooms every night, and many casino floors are eerily empty these days…

Agitators in the city have attempted to document the deterioration by posting ominous images of barren casinos, conjuring the perception of a place hollowed out by economic armageddon. The reality is more nuanced, but it is true that practically every conceivable indicator tracking tourism to Las Vegas is flashing warning signs. Hotel occupancy has cratered. Rooms were only 66.7 percent full in July, down by 16.8 percent from the previous year. The number of travelers passing through Harry Reid International Airport also declined by 4.5 percent in 2025 during an ongoing ebb of foreign tourists, for familiar reasons. Canadians, historically one of the city’s most reliable sources of degenerates, have effectively vanished. Ticket sales for Air Canada jets flying to Las Vegas have slipped by 33 percent, while the Edmonton-based low-cost carrier Flair has reported a 62 percent drop-off. Those last data points have provoked the city’s mayor, Shelley Berkley, to engage in some emergency diplomacy. In September, she implored our neighbors from the north to make their prodigal return to the Strip.

“I’m telling everyone in Canada, please come,” she said. “We love you, we miss you, we need you.”

We don’t like to admit it, but we are very dependent on our neighbors to the north.

Canadians normally account for approximately 30 percent of all international visits to the U.S. each year.

But this year it has been a completely different story…

From Washington state to northern New England, American businesses that have long depended on Canadian visitors are seeing traffic dry up — and with it, a crucial source of revenue.

A new report shared exclusively with Fortune by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) – Minority, a congressional standing committee dating back to 1946 responsible for documenting the economic conditions of the U.S., details how a sharp drop in Canadian tourism is hitting every U.S. state along the northern border.

For many border communities, maintaining a healthy level of visitors from Canada is a matter of economic survival.

If there is a substantial drop in Canadian visitors, many businesses will simply cease to exist.

If you live in a community near the Canadian border, you know exactly what I am talking about.

So the fact that the number of vehicles crossing over the border from Canada has dropped so precipitously is extremely alarming…

From January to October 2025, the number of passenger vehicles crossing the U.S.-Canada border fell by nearly 20% compared with the same period in 2024, according to the JEC analysis, which draws on U.S. Customs and Border Protection travel statistics. In some border states, the decline reached 27%, a shift that local tourism agencies say is showing up in fewer tourists, more hotel vacancies, and weaker sales.

Other than during the early days of the pandemic, we have never seen anything quite like this.

One woman that runs a gift shop in northern New Hampshire says that she can count the number of Canadian tourists that she has encountered this year on one hand…

In northern New Hampshire, the absence of Canadian license plates is especially stark. “Being only eight miles from the border, normally Canadians make up anywhere from 15-25% of visitors. Now, I can probably count the number of Canadian visitors on one hand. I’m just trying to plug along and keep my nose above the waterline,” said Elizabeth Guerin, owner of the Fiddleheads gift shop in Colebrook, New Hampshire.

Everyone knows what has happened to our relationship with Canada over the past year.

And now the Canadians are showing us exactly how they feel about it.

We need people to come here and spend their money.

So it is important to be friendly.

Unfortunately, we continue to implement even more measures that will make it even more difficult for foreign visitors to come to this country.

For example, it appears that millions of foreign visitors will soon be required to submit “five years of their social media history” before entering the United States…

The Trump administration is proposing to ask visitors from several dozen nations that enjoy visa-free travel to the U.S. to submit additional personal information before entering the country, including five years of their social media history, the Department of Homeland Security said in a notice this week.

Citizens of 42 countries enrolled in the visa waiver program can generally come to the U.S. for up to 90 days for tourism or business travel, without needing to apply for a visa at an American embassy or consulate, a process that can take months or even years.

The list of countries in the visa waiver program includes many European nations like the United Kingdom, Germany and France, as well as some U.S. allies around the world, including Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

The tourism industry is already in critical condition.

Are they trying to finish it off?

Of course even if we were as welcoming as possible, a lot of tourists would still shun us because of how expensive the U.S. has become to visit.

When one author wrote that we have built “a tourism economy designed to extract maximum revenue from every interaction”, he was right on target…

America has become too expensive to visit, and the tourism industry refuses to admit it. We’ve turned travel – and living – into an extraction operation, and we’re surprised when people stop coming.

America has lost the plot. We built a tourism economy designed to extract maximum revenue from every interaction, and it’s backfiring spectacularly. We have priced ourselves out of our own welcome mat. What once felt like a promise to the world is now an obstacle course, a trip measured not in miles but in fees, surcharges, and the steady erosion of goodwill.

I’ve spent nearly 15 years observing this industry at Skift, watching as we’ve collectively convinced ourselves that premium travel’s resilience somehow masks the fundamental rot beneath. But the cracks are showing, and they’re widening faster than anyone wants to admit.

If we want tourists to visit, we need to stop ripping them off.

At this stage, the vast majority of America’s most prominent tourist destinations are only affordable for the wealthy and the ultra-wealthy.

And the gap between the rich and the rest of us just continues to grow.

According to one recent report, the top 0.001 percent of the world’s population has three times as much money “as the entire bottom half of humanity”…

Fewer than 60,000 people – 0.001% of the world’s population – control three times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of humanity, according to a report that argues global inequality has reached such extremes that urgent action has become essential.

The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also found that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90% combined, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings.

Wealth – the value of people’s assets – was even more concentrated than income, or earnings from work and investments, the report found, with the richest 10% of the world’s population owning 75% of wealth and the bottom half just 2%.

If you are at or near the top of the pyramid, life is good.

But for those in the bottom half, things are really rough.

History has shown us that when the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” gets too large, really bad things can happen.

We have already seen eruptions of civil unrest all over the globe throughout 2025, and I am convinced that this is just the beginning.

Reviving the middle class should be a priority for leaders all over the globe.

And if we want to have a sustainable tourism industry, we need to make tourism affordable for the middle class again.

Unfortunately, the tourism industry has become yet another example of the rampant greed that is now permeating our society, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.