Current Travel Trends by Country (2026 Data)

Current travel trends by country start from a record: 1,544 million¹ international tourist arrivals in 2025, 4.4%² more than in 2019. The recovery is uneven. Spain received 15.9%³² more international tourists than in 2019 and Japan 33.9%⁴² more, while the United States hosted 14.0%⁵² fewer international visitors.

Behind the totals, travelers are switching destinations. Chinese arrivals in Japan rose 30.3%⁶ in 2025 while Chinese arrivals in Thailand fell 33.6%⁷, and Americans took 109.3 million⁸ international trips. Greece fills up in August with 46 times⁹ the foreign guest nights of January, and a year abroad at the US government's average foreign daily allowance comes to $162,827¹⁰².

Where the world traveled in 2025

International arrivals grew 5%¹ in 2025, and receipts from international visitors reached $1,882 billion¹, up 4% in real terms. Arrivals had fallen 72% in 2020 and were still 0.3% short of 2019 in 2024, so 2025 is the first full year clearly above the pre-pandemic level.¹

The longer view shows how much ground was lost. Arrivals grew from 911 million in 2009 to 1,479 million in 2019, about 5% a year, then dropped to 413 million in 2020.¹¹¹ Receipts followed the same curve, from $908 billion in 2009 to $1,499 billion in 2019 and $563 billion in 2020.¹ Several big destinations kept growing in 2025 even from high levels: arrivals rose 3% in Spain, 5% in the Netherlands, and 6% in Mexico in the first eleven months.¹¹ The table follows the path year by year for both arrivals and spending.

Spending recovered faster than travel itself. In real terms, receipts in 2024 were already 2% above 2019, while arrivals were still just short of their 2019 level.¹

Europe remains the center of gravity. It received more than half of all international arrivals in 2025, and Asia and the Pacific took a little over a fifth. The Middle East and Africa together account for about one arrival in eight.¹²

The regional picture explains most of the headline. Europe's 793 million arrivals were 6% above 2019, the Middle East was 39% above it and Africa 17% above, while Asia and the Pacific, at 331 million, was still 9% short.¹¹

In 2025 alone, Asia and the Pacific grew fastest, by 8%, and Africa by 7%, while the Americas added only 1%.¹ The Middle East came close to 100 million arrivals for the first time.¹¹

2026 so far

Growth has almost stopped this year. The world counted 690 million¹ arrivals in the first half of 2026, only 0.4% more than a year earlier, or about 3 million extra trips. The first quarter still grew 2%, but the second quarter fell 1%, with April and June each down 3%.¹

• The Middle East lost 22% of its arrivals in the first half of 2026.¹
• Africa kept growing, up 4% on 2025 and 29% above the first half of 2019.¹
• The outlook for the full year was cut to growth of 1% to 2%, from 3% to 4% earlier.¹

Europe still grew 3% in the first half, and it is now 11% above the same months of 2019, while Asia and the Pacific, up just 1%, remains 11% below its 2019 level.¹ The gap between the two regions is the clearest single trend of the last two years. So which countries are pulling ahead?

The fastest-growing destinations

Compared with 2019, the biggest gains belong mostly to smaller or newly opened destinations rather than the classic names.¹² Bhutan more than doubled its pre-pandemic count, and Qatar, El Salvador, Bahrain and Albania all grew by close to 90% or more.¹²

Several names come back in every list. Uzbekistan is 73% above 2019, grew 14% in 2025 and another 25% in the first half of 2026; Malta is 44% above 2019 and still adding 12% to 18% a year; Bhutan appears in all three rankings.¹²¹ In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia is up 67% and Bahrain 91% on 2019.¹²

Bigger markets on the list add far more people. Morocco, up 53% on 2019, came close to 20 million arrivals in 2025, and Colombia gained half again on its 2019 total.¹¹ The table below takes the one-year view: the ten fastest risers from 2024 to 2025 in each world region.

Some of these gains are rebounds, not booms. Israel's 37% rise in 2025 still left it 71% below 2019, while Iceland and Japan both sat about a third above their 2019 counts.¹²

Winners of the first half of 2026

This year's leaders are a different list again. New Caledonia rose 41% but is still about 40% below 2019; Greece, Ireland and Vietnam each grew 15%, and South Korea 21%.¹

From percentages to headcounts: the world's major destinations each count visitors their own way, so the totals below sit side by side but are not a ranking.

The biggest destinations, country by country

Spain counts overnight tourists at its borders, the United States counts visitors staying at least one night on qualifying visas, and Türkiye counts foreign visitors at its border gates. Japan's count includes transit passengers and students, and Mexico's adds border tourists to those who travel deeper into the country.^3513614

Spain

Spain set another record in 2025 with 96,803,894³ international tourists, 3.2% more than in 2024 and 13.3 million more than in 2019. The United Kingdom supplies 19.7% of them, but the fastest growth since 2019 came from the rest of the Americas, up 41.4%, with Ireland (40.1%) and Portugal (39.3%) close behind; tourists from the United States rose 34.0%.³² Only the Nordic countries sent fewer people than in 2019, down 7.3%.³

Tourists from the Netherlands rose 35.9% compared with 2019, while the two biggest markets after the United Kingdom, France, with 12,767,491 tourists, and Germany, with 12,050,833, grew more slowly, by 14.5% and 8.0%.³ The pace has not stopped in 2026: provisional counts show 58,106,406 tourists from January to July.³

Japan

Japan received 42,683,600⁶ visitors in 2025, up 15.8% on 2024 and 33.9%⁴² above the 31,882,049 of 2019.⁴ South Korea sent the most people, 9,459,600, but China was the engine: Chinese arrivals rose 30.3% to 9,096,300, and American arrivals rose 21.4% to 3,306,800.⁶ The boom is cooling in 2026. January to May brought 17,936,000 visitors, 1.1% fewer than a year earlier, and Chinese arrivals in May 2026 fell 60.4%.¹⁵

The growth in 2025 was broad. Visitors from Germany rose 31.8%, from Italy 34.6%, from Spain 34.7% and from India 35.2%, and arrivals from the Middle East jumped 54.7%.⁶ Russia almost doubled, up 96.3% from a small base.⁶ Hong Kong was the one large market to shrink, down 6.2%, and December 2025 still brought 3,617,700 visitors, 3.7% more than a year earlier.⁶

Türkiye

Türkiye's foreign visitor count barely moved: 52,775,055¹³ in 2025, up 0.28%. Adding 11,166,206 Turkish citizens who live abroad brings the border total to 63,941,261.¹³ Russia (6,903,981) and Germany (6,745,190) remain the two main markets, visitors from Iran fell to 3,050,195, and American visitors rose 9.9% to 1,584,725.¹³ Visitors from the United Kingdom slipped to 4,270,036 after a strong 2024, and those from Georgia fell to 1,327,884, while Poland kept climbing to 1,914,958.¹³

Thailand

Thailand went the other way. International arrivals fell 7.2%⁷² to 32,974,321 in 2025, mainly because Chinese arrivals dropped 33.6%, from 6,733,162 to 4,473,992.⁷ Malaysia became the top market, India grew 16.8% to 2,487,319, and arrivals from the United Kingdom rose 12.1%.⁷ South Korean arrivals fell 16.8% and those from Laos dropped to 868,368 from 1,124,202, while American arrivals rose 5.0% to 1,081,929.⁷ Thailand's loss of Chinese visitors in 2025 is almost the same size as Japan's gain: 2,259,170 fewer in Thailand, 2,114,958 more in Japan.⁷⁶²

Mexico

Mexico received 47,786,706¹⁴ international tourists in 2025, 6.1% more than in 2024, and 98,202,774 international visitors once same-day trips are counted.¹⁴ Border crossings and cruise calls make up a large share: cruise passengers alone numbered 11,434,687, up 12.6%.¹⁴ Each international tourist spent $663.69 on average, slightly less than the $671.56 of 2024, while tourists who arrived by air spent $1,221.36.¹⁴ The mix is shifting toward the border: border tourists rose 13.6% to 20,415,107, while air arrivals of interior tourists slipped 1.3% to 22,867,222.¹⁴ All international visitors together spent $34,991.6 million, 6.2% more than in 2024.¹⁴

Europe's hotels and campsites

For Europe, a count of foreign guests at hotels, holiday homes and campsites gives the widest comparison. Across the European Union, foreign guest arrivals rose 14.1%¹⁶ from 2019 to 2025. Malta (+40.3%) and Italy (+35.2%) lead, while Germany is still 5.8% below 2019 and the three Baltic states are down between 13.5% and 16.4%.¹⁶ Ireland (+27.1%), Denmark (+26.1%) and Portugal (+20.8%) are well ahead of the EU average, and Spain's accommodation count, +18.1%, tells the same story as its border count. Türkiye, measured the same way, is up 25.6%.¹⁶

In absolute numbers, Italy now welcomes the most foreign guests of any EU country, 87,897,260 arrivals at its accommodation in 2025, ahead of Spain, with 79,995,357, and France, with 58,740,022.¹⁶ Germany, with 37,134,349 foreign guest arrivals, is the only one of the EU's four largest still below its 2019 count, and Greece recorded 28,175,239.¹⁶

Spain gained 13.3 million tourists compared with 2019; over the same years, the United States lost 11.2 million visitors.³⁵²

The United States as a destination

The US received 68,287,793⁵ international visitors in 2025, 5.5% fewer than in 2024 and well below the 2018 peak of 79,745,918.⁵ The long line shows how fast the market came back after 2020, and how it stalled in 2025.

The drop has clear sources. Canada, the largest market in 2019, sent 22.7% fewer visitors in 2025, and Japan and China each sent only about half of their 2019 numbers.⁵ India moved the other way, up 39.9% to 2,060,726, and Colombia and Italy also passed their 2019 levels.⁵ Europe's three largest markets are all down by double digits: the United Kingdom 15.1%, Germany 14.2% and France 13.8%.⁵ South Korea (-28.3%) and Australia (-27.3%) show that the long-haul Pacific markets have been slowest to return.⁵

In headcounts, Mexico has overtaken Canada as the biggest source of visitors, with 17,980,030 against 16,018,525 in 2025.⁵ Of the 15 largest markets, only India, Colombia and Italy sent more visitors than in 2019, and Mexico is almost back, 1.9% short.⁵

Across 116 countries of residence, the changes since 2019 run from large gains in Eastern Europe and South Asia to steep falls elsewhere. Poland is up 67.8% and Bangladesh 55.3%, while visitors from Cuba (-78.8%) and Haiti (-77.7%) fell by more than three quarters and those from Russia (-63.9%) by almost two thirds.⁵²

Inside the US, overseas visitors concentrate in a few states. New York received 9,801,000 overseas visits in 2024, Florida 8,858,000 and California 6,956,000, and five states together, with Texas and Massachusetts, took 58.7% of the $169.8 billion that overseas visitors spent.¹⁷ That spending supported 905,930 jobs across the country.¹⁷ Beyond the big three, Nevada drew 2,642,000 overseas visits, Texas 2,087,000, Hawaii 1,974,000 and the District of Columbia 1,629,000, while North Dakota, with 21,000, received the fewest.¹⁷ For most states outside the top ten, the estimates rest on fewer than 100 interviews and are best read as rough sizes.¹⁷

By world region, only Central America sends more visitors than before the pandemic, up 24.2%. Visitors from Asia are down 27.2%, from Oceania 25.9%, and all overseas visitors together 15.1%.⁵

Month by month, 2025 ran below 2019 all year. August was the busiest month for overseas visitors, with 3,492,907 arrivals, and February the quietest, with 2,198,100.¹⁸

2026 is running lower again. From January to August, overseas visitors totaled 21,406,837¹⁸², 5.8% fewer than in the same months of 2025; July and August 2026 are preliminary.¹⁸

Air travel through US airports is holding up better. Airport security checkpoints, which screen all departing passengers on domestic and international flights, screened 904 million people in 2024¹⁹ and 906.7 million in 2025, 0.3% more, along with 480 million checked bags.²⁰ The busiest single day on record was Sunday, November 30, 2025, with 3,133,924 people screened.²¹ Travel and tourism as a whole produced $2.64 trillion of output in 2023, counting direct and indirect output; its direct value added was 3.03% of GDP, and it supported 10.0 million jobs.²²

Where Americans travel

While fewer visitors came in, more Americans went out. US citizens made 109,261,808⁸ international trips in 2025, 10.1% more than in 2019, and trips to overseas destinations, beyond Canada and Mexico, rose 25.3%.⁸² The rebound was steep: 33,499,369 trips in 2020, 80,846,988 in 2022, 98,627,062 in 2023 and 106,376,575 in 2024.⁸ Growth is slowing in 2026: 54,240,227 trips in the first half, up 3.4%, and overseas trips up only 1.0% to 27,890,853.⁸

The overseas part of that flow has grown fastest.⁸ At 56,155,071 trips, overseas travel in 2025 was 2.08 times its 2011 level.⁸²

Mexico is still the first stop, with 39,680,600 trips in 2025. Europe drew 23,339,445, which is 21.4% of all trips abroad, ahead of Canada and the Caribbean.⁸² Central America drew 5,204,053 trips and the Middle East 3,543,245, more than South America.⁸ Across all destinations, July was the busiest month, with 11,512,261 departures, and February the quietest, with 7,136,660.⁸

A different national estimate for 2024 names the countries behind those regions. The United Kingdom led overseas destinations with 6.0 million American visitors, followed by Italy and France.²³ In total, 53.8 million US travelers went overseas in 2024, 9.8% more than a year earlier, spread across 138 countries; trips to Mexico rose 8.1% and to Canada 10.2%.²³ These country estimates come from interviews with travelers rather than from passenger records, so they are shown separately from the trip counts above and never added to them.²³

At city level, beach resorts and big cities next door lead. Cancun drew 4.8 million US travelers in 2024, Mexico City 3.1 million and Toronto 1.8 million.²³

Canada, the other land neighbor, drew 13,426,137 American trips in 2025, about a third of Mexico's total.⁸

Most of these trips are holidays. Six in ten US travelers abroad in 2024 went on vacation, and a little over a quarter went to see friends and relatives; business accounts for just 5%.²³

When do all these trips happen?

The best time to travel by month

In southern Europe, summer is not just busy but overwhelming. Foreign guests spent 47,804,277 nights in Italian accommodation in July 2025 and only 10,443,450 in November, less than a quarter of July's level; July is 4.58 times November.⁹² Greece is the extreme case, and Spain the most even of the four in the chart below.

Spain's August, with 42,701,346 foreign guest nights, is 2.67 times its January, and France's July is 4.88 times its November.⁹ In Greece, January brings just 613,195 nights against 28,488,715 in August.⁹

For the whole European Union, August 2025 brought 240,398,744 foreign guest nights, 3.72 times the November low.⁹² Spring and autumn, April to June and September to October, sit between the two, so a trip in May or October meets far fewer foreign guests than one in August. Germany (2.44 times) and Spain (2.67 times) have the flattest calendars of the European countries in the table below; Portugal is at 2.87 times.⁹²

Americans time their trips differently. Their trips to Europe peak in June, with 3,046,697 in 2025, 3.49 times February's level, so the busiest American month comes before Europe's own August peak.⁸² Trips to Mexico peak in December, with 4,263,541, the Caribbean in July, with 1,235,975, and Asia in June, with 729,877.⁸ September is the low point for the Caribbean, with 534,619 trips, less than half of July.⁸

The best places to travel by month

The gap between the busiest and quietest month tells you how much a place changes with the season. A small ratio means steady crowds all year; a big one means a very different trip in the off-season.² The US is the most even destination in the table: overseas visitors in August are only 1.59 times February's number.¹⁸²

Türkiye follows the Mediterranean summer pattern: 7,116,096 foreign visitors arrived in July 2025, 3.28 times January's number.¹³²

Thailand runs on the opposite calendar. Its high season is the northern winter, with 3,709,102 arrivals in January 2025, and its quietest month is September, with 2,235,852.⁷ The difference between the two is only 1.66 times, one of the flattest patterns in the table.² For a trip to Thailand, April to October bring the fewest arrivals, with no month in that stretch above July's 2,610,369; September, May and June are the three quietest.⁷

Read together, the figures give a simple month-by-month guide:

• December to February: Thailand's high season; Greece, Spain and Portugal are at their quietest.⁷⁹
• June: the peak month for Americans heading to Europe.⁸
• July and August: Europe's and Türkiye's peak, with Italy, France and Greece at their fullest.⁹
• September: Thailand's quietest month.⁷
• November: the quietest month in Italy, France and the EU as a whole.⁹
• December: the busiest month for American trips to Mexico.⁸

How much does it cost to travel?

Costs follow the trends above: more trips, at higher prices. The figures below cover what Americans spend abroad in total, what a day costs in big cities, and how prices compare across Europe.

How much Americans spend on travel per year

US residents spent $287.306 billion²⁴ on travel abroad in 2025, 60.1% more than the $179.478 billion of 2019, before inflation.² The total includes spending during the trip and fares paid to foreign airlines and cruise lines, but not fares paid to US carriers.²⁴ The series goes back to 1929, when Americans spent $0.632 billion abroad; it passed $42.702 billion in 1990 and $111.891 billion in 2010. After falling to $49.789 billion in 2020, it jumped to $175.771 billion in 2022 and $238.135 billion in 2023.²⁴

Per person, that is $840 for every US resident in 2025, against $543 in 2019 and $261 in 2000.²⁴²⁵² These are averages across the whole population, including the many people who did not travel abroad at all, so a household that does travel spends far more.

How much does it cost to travel the world?

There is no official price list for a trip around the world, but the US government sets a daily allowance for each foreign city: a lodging cap plus meals and incidentals. Across 47 main cities the allowance averages $446.1¹⁰² a day, from $809 in Tel Aviv to $237 in San Salvador, a 3.41-fold range.¹⁰² Of the average, $304.9 is lodging and $141.2 meals and incidentals.²

Western European cities take three of the top five places: Paris allows $684 a day, Zurich $675 and Rome $668, behind Tel Aviv and ahead of Jerusalem at $648.¹⁰ Across the 47 cities, the lodging cap runs from $146 to $590 a night and the meals allowance from $77 to $236 a day.¹⁰ The cheapest big cities are in Latin America and Asia, such as Manila at $276, Cairo at $289, and San Jose in Costa Rica and New Delhi at $300 each.¹⁰

That allowance is a comfortable business standard, not a backpacker budget, so it shows how much it costs to travel the world comfortably. Taken for a full year, the average comes to $162,827, and lodging alone to $111,289.¹⁰² If you are wondering how much money you need to travel the world for a year, that is the upper bound; cheaper hotels, long stays and low-cost regions cut it sharply, and flights come on top. A route through the lower-cost cities in the chart costs far less per day than one through Western Europe.¹⁰

How much does it cost to travel in Europe?

Europe is one of the dearer regions for official travel. Ten main European cities average $533.7 a day, so two weeks at that rate cost $7,472.¹⁰² Lodging varies more than food: across the ten cities, the lodging cap runs from $259 to $511 a night and the meals allowance from $112 to $236 a day.¹⁰

Prices in restaurants and hotels vary even more inside Europe. Switzerland's price level is 170.8% of the EU average, 3.45 times North Macedonia's.²⁶ Spain (83.9) and Portugal (75.5) sit well below the average, and the Balkans and Türkiye are cheaper still.²⁶ The north is the dearest part of the continent after Switzerland: Iceland stands at 167.3, Denmark at 147.6 and Norway at 140.0, while France (110.0) and Italy (106.9) are only a little above average. At the other end, Bulgaria (53.2) and Albania (52.3) cost about half the EU average.²⁶

Beyond the big numbers, a few fixed prices shape many trip budgets. They are small next to a week of hotels, but they add up on a family trip, and several of them rose in the last two years.

Passes, pets, phones and payments

How much is the Swiss Travel Pass?

The Swiss Travel Pass covers trains, buses and boats across the country. An adult pass for three days in second class costs CHF 254, about $308, and 15 days cost CHF 499, about $605, or $40.4 a day.²⁷²⁸ Longer passes are much better value per day: the three-day pass works out at $102.7 a day. First class costs 58% more, $955 for 15 days, and travelers under 25 pay less, CHF 179 for three days in second class.²⁷² The current prices apply until the end of 2026.²⁷

How much is the Verizon travel pass?

Phone roaming is now sold by the day. Verizon's TravelPass costs $12 a day in more than 210 countries and $6 a day in Mexico and Canada, for a 24-hour session; on its Unlimited plans, Mexico and Canada are included at no extra cost.²⁹ Another major US carrier charges $12 a day per line, $6 for each extra line and $20 a day at sea, and bills at most 10 days per line in a bill period, which caps each bill period at $120 per line.³⁰² For a two-week trip on one line, a daily pass at $12 adds up quickly, so it pays to switch it on only on the days you need data. On a cruise the at-sea rate of $20 a day applies instead, and the 10-day cap is for days on land only.³⁰ Each day of use is a 24-hour session, so a pass started in the evening runs until the same time the next day, which makes the timing of the first use worth planning on a short trip.²⁹

How much does it cost to travel with a dog?

A small dog in the cabin costs $150 each way on one major US airline within the US and Canada, $300 for a round trip, and $200 each way internationally.³¹² Leaving the country usually also needs an officially endorsed health certificate: $101 without lab tests, rising to $275 for seven or more tests, plus the vet's own fee.³² An international round trip with a certificate therefore starts at about $501.² Fees have been rising: the domestic in-cabin fee was $95 for tickets issued before April 8, 2025, and the fee for Brazil was $75 before it moved to $200.³¹ Service dogs recognized under the disability rules are exempt from the endorsement fee.³²

Pay for travel over time

Buy now, pay later loans are growing fast, though no official figures break out travel. Among six large lenders, the number of users rose from 48.0 million in 2022 to 53.6 million in 2023, and each user borrowed $848 a year from a lender, 13.8% more.³³² Fewer loans went bad: 1.83% were charged off, down from 2.63%.³³ The average user also took more loans, 6.3 per lender in 2023 against 5.7 a year earlier, and at the four lenders that charge late fees, fewer loans picked up one, 4.1% against 5.2%.³³ These are totals across all purchases; spreading a flight or a hotel over four payments works the same way, but its share is not measured.

In 2022, 21% of consumers with a credit record used such a loan at least once, and borrowers defaulted on about 2% of their loans (120 or more days late, a separate sample).³⁴ For a trip, the practical point is that a missed installment brings a late fee and the whole balance still comes due, so splitting a fare only helps if the payments fit the monthly budget.

How much does travel ball cost?

Youth sports have become a travel budget of their own. Families spend $1,015.64 a year on a child's main sport, and travel and lodging are the largest single item, $278.03, or 27.4% of the total.³⁵² Family spending on youth sports has risen 46% since 2019.³⁶

Travel costs vary by sport. Families whose child's main sport is baseball spend $379.30 a year on travel and lodging, 34.1% of their $1,112.50 total; travel teams are not counted separately.³⁵² Dance families spend even more on travel, $447.93, within a total of $2,048.31, while flag football costs $104.54 in travel.³⁵ The same child's other sports add $475.02 a year on average across all families, for $1,490.66 in total.³⁵²

What these trends mean for your next trip

The fastest growth since 2019, in percentage terms, has been in places that were small before the pandemic, and in Europe's Mediterranean south.¹²¹⁶ In absolute numbers, the big destinations added far more people: Spain alone received 13.3 million more tourists than in 2019.³² For travelers, that means the classic cities and islands are fuller than ever in summer.

Crowds and prices pull in different directions. The Mediterranean south is fullest in July and August but cheaper, and the north and the Alps cost the most for eating out and sleeping.⁹²⁶ Going in May or September avoids the peak crowds, and Portugal, Spain or the Balkans cut restaurant and hotel prices.

The 2026 slowdown also changes the picture. With world arrivals almost flat in the first half of the year and the Middle East down 22%, some destinations now have more room than a year ago.¹ Arrivals in Japan are slightly down for January to May, after two record years.¹⁵

For Americans, the strong flows abroad mean busy routes to Mexico in December and to Europe in June, while the US itself has fewer foreign visitors than before the pandemic.⁸⁵ Spending abroad per resident is up by more than half since 2019, before inflation, and the daily allowance in the dearest European cities is close to three times that of the cheapest cities in the list.²⁴¹⁰

Conclusions

1. Travel flows now run in two directions. Americans took 10.1% more trips abroad than in 2019, while the US received 14% fewer visitors, mostly because of Canada (-22.7%) and East Asia; Japan sent 47.6% fewer visitors and China 44.8% fewer.⁸⁵
2. Chinese travelers moved rather than stopped. Their arrivals rose 30.3% in Japan in 2025 and fell 33.6% in Thailand, and visits to the US were 44.8% below 2019.⁶⁷⁵
3. The fastest growth is at the edges. The top gainers since 2019 are mostly small or newly promoted destinations, while Germany's foreign guest arrivals are still 5.8% below 2019.¹²¹⁶
4. Peak season depends on the place. Greece has 46 times more foreign guest nights in August than in January, Thailand only 1.66 times more arrivals in January than in September, and Americans' own trips to Europe peak in June, two months before Europe's August high.⁹⁷⁸
5. Spending has risen faster than trips. US spending abroad reached $287.306 billion in 2025, 60.1% above 2019 before inflation, while trips grew 10.1%.²⁴⁸²
6. 2026 is a pause. World arrivals grew 0.4% in the first half, and the full-year outlook is 1% to 2%.¹