#visitation-decline

#visitation-decline

The underlying logic is simple: the further away a visitor comes from, the longer they tend to stay - and longer stays mean more money flowing into the local economy through lodging taxes, restaurant bills, and retail spending.

The nine national parks in the Golden State - including Yosemite, Death Valley and Joshua Tree - attracted nearly 12 million recreational visits in 2025, according to statistics from the National Park Service. That's up more than 800,000 visits from 2024 and up more than 300,000 from the previous record set in 2019, according to the data, which stretches back to 1979.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park was the most popular park in the country last year, drawing more than 11.5 million visitors, according to data from the National Park Service. In fact, the park, which straddles North Carolina and Tennessee, accounted for 12.3 percent of all national park visits.

On paper, it is one of the best things that has ever happened to destination skiers. A single pass can unlock access to an enormous network of resorts across North America and beyond. It makes ski travel easier to justify, easier to plan, and far easier to sell to a group of friends trying to decide where to go.

Rather than chasing diminishing returns through additional advertising, the agency advocated for an entertainment product: a film that could function as a vehicle for repositioning perception while operating as a single investment with long-tail value, capable of shaping how audiences feel about a place over time and across markets.

In a world where third spaces are dying, and consumers are being segregated between haves and have-nots at every turn, the airport bar has quietly endured. But the airport bar is not-so-quietly under siege. Airport concessions took a hit during the pandemic, and while they benefited from the subsequent revenge travel, the rebound has stalled.

While vacation prices have increased nationwide since 2019, the sharpest spikes have not occurred in the country's most expensive cities. Instead, the steepest growth in costs has taken place across the Mountain West, where demand has surged in midsize cities that once offered affordable alternatives to pricier coastal destinations.

Nestled in the Appalachian foothills near Mentone, Cloudmont Ski & Golf Resort is the southernmost ski area in the eastern United States. With a vertical drop of just 150 feet and two rope tows, Cloudmont runs on snowmaking and sheer stubbornness, opening for a few precious weeks or days each winter.

The ruthless, haughty Cersei Lannister was forced to walk naked down a majestic staircase in the finale of the fifth season of Game of Thrones. That scene, which was filmed in 2014, established Dubrovnik a city of just 41,500 inhabitants that is known as the gem of the Adriatic Sea into an eternal vacation destination. Today, traversing its Jesuit Stairs and surrounding streets in mid-August can be a desperate endeavor. Crowds fill every nook, and prices are exorbitant.

The off-season practically vanished in many parts of the world. Remote work, social media frenzy, and ruthless dynamic pricing have turned fall and spring into peak-season clones. Even winter is no refuge anymore. The idea of an off-season is 100% disappearing.

And yet, the U.S. tourism industry is worried. While the rest of the world saw a travel bump in 2025, with global international arrivals up 4%, the U.S. saw a downturn. The number of foreign tourists who came to the United States fell by 5.4% during the year-a sharper decline than the one experienced in 2017-18, the last time, outside the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, that the industry was gripped by fears of a travel slump.

As summer school breaks stretch longer and childcare becomes harder to secure, some families are turning to an unexpected solution: hotels offering full-day, structured kids' camps that allow parents to travel, work and keep routines intact.

Policy stances from the Trump administration on everything from immigration to tariffs, along with currency swings and stricter border controls, have seemingly proved a turnoff to travelers from other countries, especially Canadians - the single largest source of foreign tourists for the United States. Canadian travel to the U.S. fell by close to 30% in 2025. But it is not just visitors from Canada who are choosing to avoid the United States.

As Visit Florida compiles 2025 tourism figures, the agency's President and CEO Bryan Griffin and Carol Dover, the president and CEO of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, are setting up a meeting with Canadian officials. "We had this opportunity land in our lap, so we're both going to have a meeting ... and see what we can do," Dover said during a Jan. 26 Visit Florida Executive Committee meeting. Dover is also a member of the Visit Florida Board of Directors.

According to this data, season-to-date skier visits were down 20.0% compared with the same period last year.

The U.S.'s population growth is slowing as immigration has declined amid President Donald Trump's deportation push and stricter border policies. According to new Census Bureau data, the drop-off is the biggest since the COVID-19 pandemic. From July 2024 to July 2025, the population of the United States grew by 1.8 million people (about 0.5%). This was mostly driven by immigration: During that period, the U.S. added 1.3 million immigrants.

Cape Town tourism is a booming industry, and the Mother City needs foreign cash to operate as one of the planet's elite destinations. However, some locals are getting a little annoyed by the oversupply of digital nomads. European tourists are loving Cape Town, and why wouldn't they? When one single Euro gets you R19, an Uber to Boulders Beach to check out the penguins isn't all that pricy.

Air travel is showing more signs of recovery after Winter Storm Fern pummelled the country over the weekend. There were around 1,300 canceled flights within, into, or out of the US as of 6:20 a.m. ET on Tuesday, according to data from FlightAware. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport led the charge with 276, followed by Charlotte Douglas with 138. While more flights are likely to be canceled throughout the day, there were about 4,000 such cancellations early on Monday. The day ended with 6,250 canceled flights, per FlightAware. That compares to Sunday's 11,618 canceled flights.

Years later, after countless nights in hotels from budget chains to five-star establishments, I've noticed something interesting. Those of us who grew up in lower-middle-class households carry certain behaviors with us into these spaces. They're not necessarily bad habits, but they're telling. They reveal a childhood where every pound mattered and waste was practically a sin. I've seen these patterns in myself, in friends from similar backgrounds, and in countless fellow travelers over the years.