While demand from the US’s main source market, Canada, appears to have dropped sharply – perhaps unsurprising given President Trump’s very public spat with recently departed Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau – Brand USA last week revealed demand from the UK – the US’s largest international source market – had so far held up well, albeit while acknowledging the volatility that exists in the market.

Brand USA and its partners have just wrapped up a tour of Europe promoting the Great US Road Trip; speaking a day after President Trump imposed a 10% tariff on UK imports into the US, Jackie Ennis, Brand USA vice-president, global trade development, revealed the UK had started 2025 "very strongly", with visitors to the US up 5% year-on-year based on arrival figures.

"Obviously, these were forward bookings for travel in the first two months of the year but the year has started very well," said Ennis, who also revealed transatlantic airlift had now been full restored five years on from he pandemic.

In addition, Ennis characterised monthly seat capacity to the US as being "fairly stable" compared with 2024, adding lower rates for travel during the shoulder seasons were driving gains in several European markets, including the UK and Italy.

John Grant, senior analyst at aviation data company OAG, who tracked the decline in US air demand from Canada in a recent blog post, told TTG he didn’t foresee any similar shifts in terms of the UK market. "To date, there hasn’t been anything of consequence change in capacity from the UK to US for the summer season.

"There are currently some 16.4 million two-way seats scheduled, and that hasn’t changed over the past few weeks. And given airline schedules are locked in for much of the summer, I suspect will not change; planning long-haul services means airlines do not perhaps have as much flexibility as they could have in their short-haul programmes."

So with US-UK air capacity unlikely to be in short supply this summer, will the consequences of President Trump’s actions and rhetoric be grave enough to change travellers’ sentiment? And does this risk some of these seats being flown empty?

’Substantial setback’

Tourism Economics said President Trump’s policies and pronouncements "have produced a negative sentiment shift toward the US among international travellers", adding: "The correlating decline in international travel to the US is expected to be strongest in 2025, with persisting degrees of impact throughout the remainder of Trump’s second term."

Last week, it severely downgraded its outlook for US inbound tourism; it is now predicting a 9.4% decline in international visitor arrivals this year and 5% fall in spending, equating to $9 billion. This compares with a forecast from December 2024 which predicted growth in visitation of 8.8% and growth in spending of 16%.

"This updated outlook represents a substantial setback with the full recovery of international visits to the US pushed out to 2029," the group added.

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