Tariffs will raise costs for hotels and are weakening the dollar. The net effect is likely to be higher prices for travelers both domestically and internationally, which may deepen already chilled desire for travel even further.
The Trump administration’s back-and-forth on tariffs, which for now has resulted in a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on imported goods and much higher levies on imports from China, have raised concerns about the consumer cost increases as well as the ability and desire of Americans to spend money on discretionary activities.
Hotel operators, for example, purchase a wide variety of imported goods—everything from bedding to beverages. “While hospitality businesses may absorb some of these added expenses in the short term, it’s likely that at least part of the increased cost will eventually be passed on to customers,” Becky Liu-Lastres, associate professor in the department of tourism, event and sport management at Indiana University, told The New York Times.
Consumer confidence is at a 12-year low, according to The Conference Board, and 54 percent of American Society of Travel Advisors members reported in April that consumer demand for travel has declined.
Those who do decide to travel may be faced with a serious decline in buying power. The Trump administration’s erratic and aggressive approach to international trade has led to a serious erosion of confidence in the U.S. as a stable environment for business and investment, experts say. That has prompted a selloff of U.S. Treasury bonds and a dip in the value of the dollar, which today fell to a 3-year low against the Euro and a 12-year low against the Swiss franc, for example.
“The U.S., almost overnight, it seems to have lost its safe-haven attributes,” Ray Attrill, head of FX strategy at National Australia Bank, told Reuters. The whole premise of the dollar as a reserve currency is being challenged, effectively, by what we’ve seen since Trump’s election,” said Attrill.
The administration’s immigration crackdown, which has extended beyond undocumented migrants to sweep up student visa holders and everyday foreign travelers at the U.S. border, also is depressing desire to travel to the U.S., notably among Canadians and Europeans. Data from the U.S. National Travel and Trade Office shows that inbound travel to the U.S. has declined 4.4 percent in 2025 compared to the first three months of last year, and was down 10 percent in March alone.
