A new survey indicates that global travel intent to the US has declined significantly so far in 2025, reflecting the Trump administration’s divisive policies. Robbie Hodges reports 

Research by the travel intelligence platform Mabrian has found that fewer international tourists are considering travel to the US relative to 2024, reflecting a growing sense of uncertainty and caution among travellers. 

The insight was extracted from Mabrian’s Share of Searches Index, a proprietary survey that measures the demand market share positioning of the US based on spontaneous global flight search behaviour. It tracks millions of weekly flight searches to the US from Europe, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC) and Australia.

The survey compared data from between January and April 2025 to the same period a year before. Across all markets, travel intent is reported to have dropped moderately. While countries in the EU showed a moderate -0.3 percentage point decline, those in the GCC and Australia declined by -0.5. 

Average Share of Searches Index for Germany, Italy, and France settles around 4.7% by end of April. Germany and Italy each recorded a significant decrease nearing -1 percentage point compared to 2024 after the U.S. government updated their tariffs policy, an announcement that had a similar effect in France.In the UAE, travel demand dropped weekly by -0.75 percentage points on average.

However, there was fluctuation in the results. In Britain, for instance, travel intent briefly surpassed 2024’s levels in mid-March, but quickly dropped by -0.8 percentage points in April following the Trump Administration’s announcement of global tariffs. A similar pattern could be seen in data from Spain, which was converging to 2024 levels only to drop by -0.5 percentage points mid-April.  

Meanwhile in Australia, there was an unusual uptick in interest at the end of April – despite interest trailing behind 2024 in the preceding months. 

Mabrian’s research is just one of many consumer travel surveys that reflect a significant shift in the relationship between the US and the wider world. The recent ‘Right-sized American Summer’ survey published by Deloitte indicated that Americans themselves are increasingly prioritising road trips over flying, while other platforms and research bodies talk of the “Donald Dash” in reference to the surge of US citizens looking to emigrate.

With Trump turbulence set to continue, Mabrian says it will continue to monitor results.