(NEXSTAR) — With growing concerns about economic instability and global tensions, many popular tourist destinations across the nation are concerned that visitor numbers might drop this year. However, travel experts suggest that if demand decreases significantly, you might benefit from better deals as these locations try to attract guests.
Where is tourism declining?
A
Las Vegas tourism report
Released earlier this week indicated that both visitor numbers and hotel occupancy rates decreased compared to last year. This data comes from reports issued by California’s tourism board.
reported steep drop-offs
beginning in February and March.
Due to the decline in travel demand, leading U.S. airlines are cutting back on their flight schedules and adjusting or canceling their financial forecasts for the year.
“We concluded with a robust fourth quarter, experienced reasonable activity in January, but noticed a significant decline in domestic leisure travel as we moved into February,” said American Airlines CEO Robert Isom to CNBC.
Customer hesitation about scheduling trips would align with
a new poll
That indicated numerous individuals are afraid the U.S. is under threat.
steered into a recession
Moreover, President Donald Trump’s extensive and inconsistently applied tariffs will lead to increased costs.
The decrease in travelers includes both domestic and international visitors.
U.S. Travel Association
International visits decreased by 14% in March compared to the previous year. According to the report, the most significant declines came from travelers originating from Canada and Western Europe.
Michael Feroli, who leads the U.S. economics team at J.P. Morgan, suggested that the decline in travel might be attributed to increasing hostility toward Americans.
Over the past few weeks, many articles have highlighted how tourists are cancelling their visits to the U.S. due to objections over what they see as overly strict new trade measures,” he noted in his report for clients. “This could be an additional factor we should take into account when evaluating the impact of these duties on overall economic performance.
A modest reduction in international travel, stemming from either boycotts or financial instability, could result in significant losses for the US economy amounting to several billion dollars.
Bloomberg
reports.
Is the decrease in tourism likely to lead to better travel deals?
Should demand decrease within the travel industry, airlines, hotel chains, and similar businesses might reduce their prices in an effort to attract more customers again.
Airfares decreased in February and March, as reported.
Labor Department monitoring
.
Alaska Airlines Chief Financial Officer Shane Tackett informed CNBC, “The ticket prices have weakened compared to those in the final three months of last year extending through early February.” He further noted, “While demand remains robust across the sector, it hasn’t reached the elevated levels we expected would persist from last year onwards.”
Before jumping to too many conclusions, several industry analysts recommend holding off until the April data comes out to evaluate whether the typically bustling spring break and Easter travel periods also experienced price decreases.
Nonetheless, airline business writer
Brian Summers
stated to The New York Times, “Overall, I anticipate that prices will drop, and we’ll observe more unoccupied seats.”
Should the U.S. economy slide into a recession this year, it might lead to lower prices for travel as well as various other products and services.
“In fact, in the 2008 recession, you actually saw deflation for for a couple months where the overall price level was actually lower,” said Tyler Schipper, an associate professor of economics at the University of St. Thomas. “I think of this being particularly true for things that maybe are more luxury for a lot of households, like travel. So airline travel, for instance, you can see falls in prices around most recessions. And I suspect if we went into a recession, we would still see that again.”
Nexstar’s Addy Bink and the Associated Press provided contributions for this report.
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