By Olivier Acuña Barba •
Published: 24 Apr 2025 • 13:40
• 3 minutes read
Having all documents and visa in order is no longer any guarantee you’ll enter the US | Photo: New Africa / Shutterstock
Two young German women’s dream holiday was transformed into a nightmare upon landing in Honolulu, where they were strip-searched and body scanned, before being deported.
Charlotte Pohi, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, had plans to explore the Hawaiian island before continuing their adventurous journey to California and Costa Rica. However, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) quickly ended their dream.
The two German backpackers’ ordeal is not an isolated incident. Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney, 35, was held for nearly two weeks by US immigration officials in March after attempting to enter the US from Mexico. She said her experience was akin to being ‘kidnapped’ and held in ‘cold and crowded’ cells. She described the conditions in the detention facilities as ‘unjust’ in an interview with ABC10.
Lucas Sielaff, 25, a German national travelling with his American fiancée, was detained for 16 days after allegedly violating the terms of his tourist permit. Despite holding a valid visa, he was shackled and locked up in an overcrowded detention centre before being allowed back to Germany. It’s stories like these that are causing a steep decline in travel to the United States.
Tourism to the United States has seen a 12 per cent decline compared to the same month of last year, according to the International Trade Administration, an agency under the US Department of Commerce.
Sowing fears of bad experiences
Industry experts say some of the reasons are plain to see: Reports of detentions and deportations, including the weeks-long lockup of European tourists, have sown fears of bad experiences at the border. Some countries have tightened travel advisories, and Trump’s whiplash tariffs have ratcheted up international tensions.
Last month, the number of overseas visitors decreased by nearly 12 percent compared to the same time the previous year, according to data from the International Trade Administration, an agency under the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The significant downturn comes after a 2 percent decline year-over-year in February and is the first meaningful decrease since travel plummeted in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a Washington Post report, if the decline were to continue, U.S. tourism revenue would stand to lose billions of dollars, industry experts projected.
Nervous and enraged by Trump’s rhetoric
“Some would-be travelers are nervous about the Trump administration’s policies,” the Financial Times wrote. “Others are enraged by his rhetoric. Some have doubts about their safety. The European Union has begun to issue its US-bound officials burner phones out of fear of surveillance, the Financial Times reported.
“On the corporate front, travel to the US has also taken a hit. All sectors may struggle in 2025. Airfares, hotels, and car rentals all saw business drop,” Travel and Tour World reported. “The decline in travelers from various countries, including Denmark, Germany, and Norway, highlights a global shift away from the US.”
“Spain, which is among the European countries that most travelled to the United States in March 2025, also recorded a nearly 20,000 drop (-24.5%),” Euro News revealed.
Stefan Gössling, professor of School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University in Sweden, told Euro News: “There is considerable evidence that the new government scrutinises migrants, foreign students, even Green Card holders. Unwarranted individuals are deported. This presents the US in a new light that is no longer welcoming, something that deters tourism.”
Less Europeans are travelling to the US
The steep fall in visitors from several countries and regions is especially stark. According to official US data, there were 17 per cent fewer visitors from Western Europe in March, 24 per cent fewer from Central America, and 26 per cent fewer from the Caribbean compared with a year ago.
After Canada and Mexico, the largest share of travelers typically hail from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia, Brazil, and Colombia.
US data also shows visitors from nearly all of these countries dropped in March. The number of travellers from Colombia dropped by 33 per cent, Germany 28 per cent, and Spain 25 per cent year on year.
The Washington Post noted that instead of heading to the U.S., many Europeans are travelling regionally, while Allison O’Connor, a spokeswoman for the US Travel Association, said, “This year’s downward trend is alarming.”
While travel advisories to the US are not uncommon due to gun violence and many other crimes, France, Denmark, Germany, Finland, the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, and Ireland have warned their citizens against traveling to the United States because of Trump’s executive order.
