Brian Daitzman is the Editor of The Intellectualist. Subscribe to his Substack.
The United States entered 2026 expecting international tourism finally to regain some of the ground lost since the pandemic. Instead, overseas visitation is on pace to fall by nearly two million travelers from last year, turning an anticipated recovery into another source of economic weakness.
Even the FIFA Men’s World Cup was not enough to reverse the broader trend.
Semafor reported this week that overseas visits to the United States were tracking nearly two million below last year’s level. The weakness extends beyond that measure. Travel from Canada, historically one of the country’s most important international markets, has also remained sharply below earlier levels.
The reversal is striking because it runs directly against forecasts made only months ago.
In May, the U.S. Travel Association projected that international visits would rise 3.4 percent this year, to 70.6 million. The Commerce Department’s National Travel and Tourism Office separately projected approximately 70.5 million arrivals, an increase of 3.2 percent from 2025.
Both forecasts expected the World Cup to help.
The tournament did provide a temporary lift. U.S. Travel reported that international inbound travel to World Cup host cities increased 0.7 percent during the competition, compared with a 3.6 percent national decline from January through May.
But the event did not reverse the broader deterioration.
“We’re the only major country in the world losing visitation,” Geoff Freeman, president and chief executive of the U.S. Travel Association, told Axios. “It’s mind-boggling.”
