Inbound Travel is Receding – Here’s how US DMOs can Rebuild for 2026

If you manage a US-based travel agency, destination management organization, or perhaps a hotel, or tour company, you’re likely finding 2025 is a little tougher. Foreign demand for US travel destinations dropped, particularly from alienated Canadians.

The European outbound market is still alive, however, the domestic travel market is a key focus for 2026.

Of course, you know the issues.  Perhaps, you’ve already adjusted your travel marketing budget to refocus on the US domestic traveler. This is how President Trump likely prefers it. The rising US travel market will be a huge one for the next 5 years, likely surpassing 2019’s peak demand and revenue.

As  a DMO marketer, you need to rebuild your US traveler profile, publish great content that reframes the current travel market, making travelers believe that America for Americans is a refreshing development for them.  You might want to play up a new love of America, because their joy of travel in this case is this incredible country – the one global travelers want more of.

So what do I think are the key tasks for DMO’s this coming year? My guess is that DMOs will have to:

• Focus on the US travel market with highly differentiated creative campaigns that break through the noise to reach and impact American travelers
• Target multiple traveler audiences with unique content streams paving their buying journey
• Make travel friction look irrelevant by helping travelers solve vexing issues
• Reframe the political issues and bad press for your readers
• Focus on more experiences per travel dollar helping Americans see your destination anew
• Refocus on great content experiences building more intense, immersive blogs, video and guides with social pages linking to your great “owned platform”
• Upgrade to an advanced travel SEO strategy for a more affordable way to reach high intent travelers

A lot of the above needs some explanation, and some inspiration. Whenever change happens, doubt and inertia become the biggest challenges. That’s where we are now, trying to let go of complacency so we can establish a better marketing framework. And rather than just Google local and PPC ads, you’ll need to go deeper to service many customer types as though they were your only customer. They want their special destination, one that’s the only destination for them.

But first, let’s look at demand for US destinations and what’s shaping it.

Global Demand is Healthy (yet the U.S. Inbound is underperforming)

• U.S. Travel’s latest forecast projects inbound international visits to the U.S. have fallen 6.3% (from 72.4M in 2024 to 67.9M in 2025, even as total U.S. travel spending inches up mainly on domestic trips.
• Tourism Economics and Oxford Economics both confirm international overnights and inbound spending are lagging vs. peers and are expected to be less in 2025.
• WTTC projects foreign visitor spending in the U.S. dropping ~7% in 2025 (about $12.5B), making the U.S. the only one of 184 countries with an absolute decline in inbound spend. Key reasons: strong dollar, strict entry rules, and negative political perceptions.
• The US Travel Association predicted total U.S. travel spending will grow 1.1% to $1.35 trillion, and will reach $1.49 trillion by 2029. Inbound international visits are projected to decrease 6.3% from 72.4 million in 2024 to 67.9 million in 2025. That may stay lower in 2026 as a variety of high-friction issues plague Canadians, Europeans and Asian travelers. Total inbound travel spending is forecast to fall 3.2% to $173 billion for the year.
• U.S. Travel Association the latest fall 2025 forecast shows domestic leisure travel spending for 2025 at about US $895 billion (+1.9%) and domestic person-trips is forecast to grow as well by about 1.9% in 2026
• Road trips — 71% of Americans plan to drive on their next vacation in 2026.

What Travel Experiences are Americans Seeking in 2026?

Here are 5 of the most salient “experience types” that are resonating with U.S. travelers — useful for content strategy and positioning.

1. Nature, outdoors, and escape into less-crowded places
   • Surveys show a strong demand for nature immersion: e.g., 56% want to “immerse themselves in nature”.
   • Trend reports highlight “nature escapes” and earlier dinners, slower rhythms, off-peak travel for 2026.
   • Content implication: highlight access to nature, quiet destinations, trails, national parks, scenic drives.
2. Road trips / self-drive experiences
   • The 2026 Hilton Trends Report reports 71% of Americans planning to drive on their next vacation
   • The preference reflects value, flexibility, local/regional travel rather than long-haul flights.
   • For destination marketers: emphasise road-friendly itineraries, regional loops, nearby stay-cations, multi-stop experiences.
3. Meaningful, values-aligned travel (wellness, slower, purposeful trips)
   • Surveys show Americans are prioritizing experiences over destinations: 61% globally (73% in U.S.) say so.
   • Travel may be less about escape and more about bringing who you are to your destination.
   • For content: focus on wellness retreats, cultural authenticity, community connection, purposeful experiences rather than just visiting landmarks.
4. Culinary, local culture, food-driven trips
   • Research indicates food has become a central motivation: e.g., domestic “foodcations” are growing.
   • Also “road trip + culture + cuisine” combo appears strongly in summer travel trend data.
   • Destination marketers should emphasise local food scenes, regional specialties, immersive foodie itineraries.
5. Off-the-beaten-path, under-the-radar destinations & season-based trips
   • Surveys show interest in lesser-crowded destinations, extended breaks, non-peak travel.
   • Seasonal “chasing” (leaf seasons, lesser-known regions) also rising.
   • Content opportunity: highlight underrated regions, shoulder-season value, discover-first-mover opportunities.

How the DMO role is evolving in 2025

Recent research on destination marketing (Sojern Travel’s State of Destination Marketing 2025) suggests a shift for DMOs:

DMOs are moving:

• From “promotion only” → to “experience designers and stewards.”
  They’re expected to shape the product (itineraries, experiences, dispersal strategies), not just advertise what’s already there.
• From “broad awareness” → to “values-aligned, segment-specific journeys.”
  TTRA notes that destination success in 2025 was defined by connected, values-aligned experiences — sustainability, local culture, wellness, and social impact matter as much as price for many high-value segments.
• From “broadcast” → to “orchestrating many voices.”
  IATA and social platforms talk about DMOs acting as editors of a content ecosystem — curating local partners, supporting local creators and residents into a single, coherent brand story instead of trying to own every piece of content themselves.

Sojourn’s 2025 DMO marketing report https://web.sojern.com/reports/state-of-destination-marketing-2025  uncovers key data and some sophisticated views of how some US DMOs are targeting their audiences. It’s well worth downloading at their website. Here’s how your competitors are viewing marketing:

U.S. destination marketing can’t fix US macro policy or USA public relations. You can evolve faster and smarter than competitors in bringing a compelling pre-trip travel planning experience to the best travel consumers. Because their hearts and minds travel first.

Get Over the Status Quo: Know What is Hurting You

1. Ignoring Friction in the Travel Experience

Friction is evident, but is there a silver lining?

• Visa waits are long, travel visas are expensive/limited, infrastructure is dissatisfying (DMOs who can help will win).
• Some travel costs are up (accommodation, insurance) and the strong US dollar doesn’t help (DMOs with cost-saving offers can win). However, airfares are falling, a point which can alleviate overall price fears.
• New regulations however, indicate less travel congestion and perhaps a higher quality travel base within the US—a big benefit).

Presenting solutions for traveler friction eliminates objections and helps move them further into the booking process  Being relevant, appearing caring, and a trusted provider means using the friction part of the content storyline, helping visitors navigate emotional negativity and headline news, and get over it.  You acknowledge their own understanding, experience, fears, but help them relax and then formulate a new travel vision. For them, it becomes travel mastery and they feel more confident with you by their side.

2. Low Quality, Generic, Low Impact, Undifferentiated Content

Classic DMO mistakes:

• Stock photography imagery. Custom photos with plenty of angles/lighting, events, and moods.
• Laundry-list pages (“Eat / Stay / Play”) without the point of view of your targeted customers. Need stories from travelers (e.g., skiers, mountain bikers, beach life lovers)
• Not specifically relevant: No sharp claim about who this destination is for and when it’s best (certainty, significance). Stories that feature your target audience as the heroes.

In 2025, with AI travel planners, ChatGPT travel, Google AI Overviews, and OTA filters surfacing highly specific answers (“3-day foodie trip for solo travelers in March under $1,200”), generic content gets buried. AI hunts for these specific topics within your content.  Your content/SEO strategist must expand that relevant context and create more value, authority and trust for Google and ChatGPT.

We have to go past helpful information content, to designing/crafting a great travel content experience to make your destination the most significant available. It’s still SEO and content, but weaving it so it works a lot of audiences takes some imagination and skill.

 3. Siloed Channels and Broken Trip Planning Journeys

The Sojern and RTO9 “State of Destination Marketing” report for 2025 suggests DMOs are still wrestling with:

• Poor integration between paid media, website, email, social, and in-destination information — leading to drop-offs between dreaming, planning, booking, and experiencing.
• Weak use of first-party data (newsletter signups, on-site searches, trip-planner tools, Wi-Fi logins) for remarketing and personalization. Your own travel company analytics solution needs depth.

 4. Weak Travel Analytics

A lot of destination marketing is still graded on:

• Impressions
• Click-through rates
• “Awareness”

…instead of harder, more revealing metrics:

• Visitor mix quality (higher-yield, longer stays, values-aligned segments)
• Per-trip spend and in-destination dispersal
• Repeat visitation and Net Promoter Score

That misalignment makes it harder to defend travel marketing budgets when inbound numbers are falling.

5 Key Tips to Grow Your Reach to 2026’s Best Opportunities

 1.  Leverage Friction, to Convert their Travel Stress into Part of the Successful Travel Experience

Improve your travel content by:

• Creating radical clarity-producing content:
  “How visas, fees, and entry processes actually work if you’re coming from X” — in plain language, multiple languages, with calculators and timelines.
• Offer friction-offset value:
  City passes, transit-included tickets, bundled experiences, free museum nights; show that once they’re “through the border,” value kicks in hard.
• Provide trust anchors:
  Highlight safety, social cohesion, local hospitality, and practical help (airport welcome teams, WhatsApp help lines, live chat in multiple languages).

Reach and Convert Multiple Traveler Profiles

Market to several traveler groups simultaneously — families, couples, seniors, Gen Z, luxury travelers, solo travelers, food lovers, outdoor enthusiasts, etc. The most effective approach to target each profile with its own dedicated content track while keeping the destination’s core identity consistent across all communications.

With a separation of content experiences, you avoid having content, style and messaging for one group contaminating the others.

The model that works best is a three-part system:

1. Define the highest-value traveler segments
   
   Do your customer research: Choose 5–7 segments that drive the most volume and spend for your destination (e.g., families, seniors, Gen Z, wellness/luxury, adventure, couples). Build simple behavioral profiles: what they seek, when they travel, how they plan, and what convinces them to book.
2. Create Tailored Content Streams for Each Segment
   Develop targeted pages, itineraries, ads, social video playlists, and email tracks for each traveler type. For example:

• • Family: safety, convenience, activities, budget clarity
  • Luxury: exclusivity, design, culinary experiences
  • Gen Z: unique visuals, nightlife, authenticity, social-friendly moments
  • Seniors: comfort, accessibility, slow travel, guided experiences
  • Outdoor/adventure: trail access, gear tips, seasonal planning

3.  Use a unified brand voice to avoid alienating other groups
The content may be targeted, but the brand tone, values, and visual identity can stay fairly consistent across all segments – brand values don’t change, they’re just presented within each target niche demographic. This ensures a family message doesn’t repel luxury or solo travelers — or a Gen Z campaign doesn’t raise concerns for Gen X or seniors. Every audience wants to experience content crafted only for them.

The result is a high-impact, segmented content ecosystem: travelers feel spoken to directly to them, cared for genuinely, without other groups being turned off or feeling like they’re missing something or perhaps, second class. Bookings will increase because each audience gets personalized guidance that matches how they dream, plan, and decide — while the destination maintains one strong, stable identity across all channels.

Double Down on High-Intent Segments

Instead of chasing “everyone,” U.S. destination marketers can focus on the very best:

• VFR (Visiting Friends & Relatives) segments who have strong intent but might be discouraged by cost and friction. Tailor content, offers, and communications through diaspora communities.
• Affinity and passion groups (sports fans traveling for 2026 World Cup, niche festivals, hobby events) where travel motivation is strong enough to overcome macro negativity.
• Premium / resilient spenders who are less price-sensitive but need reassurance on experience quality, safety, and welcome.

Lean into Domestic and Near-Market Demand

Even as Canadian and Mexican inbound traffic has slumped, those are the closest “wins” if destinations can reframe the value (road trips, cross-border culture, favorable tax-free shopping, seasonal escapes) and soften the political upset.

Reframe US traveler intent:

• “Rediscover your country” story arcs, for each traveler type.
• Create fandom narratives around states, regions, and small cities.
• Make comfort seem like a launch pad to an exciting journey for more meaning

That’s a look at Destination marketing insights and strategy to help you move toward a more effective program for 2026. Combine unique destination marketing strategies with good DMO marketing software and outstanding travel analytics solutions for a much better 2026 sales year.

I invite you to peruse the travel marketing insight report, report for travel advisors and the 2026 US travel outlook. Take a closer look at my affordable travel marketing services. Contact me for a custom proposal.