Tourism in US Still Down, as Arrivals Drop 5.2% in November

The National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) has released new figures showing that international visitation to the US fell again in November, marking the seventh consecutive month of year-over-year decline.

Total US international air traffic passenger enplanements reached 19.9 million, a slight drop of 0.2 percent compared with November 2024, although still 107.1 percent of November 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

Sharp drop in non-US visitor arrivals

Arrivals of non-US citizens declined noticeably, falling to 4.2 million visitors in November 2025, which is 5.2 percent lower than the same month last year. This total represents only 87.4 percent of pre-pandemic November 2019 volume.

Overseas visitor arrivals stood at 2.5 million, equal to 85 percent of 2019 levels, down from 87 percent in October. Compared with November 2024, overseas arrivals decreased 3.5 percent, pushing year-to-date overseas visitation 2.6 percent below last year’s pace.

Outbound US travel remains strong

In contrast to weakening inbound travel, US citizen air travel abroad climbed to 5.3 million departures in November, an increase of 1.3 percent over last year and significantly above pre-pandemic demand at 26.5 percent higher than November 2019.

Top markets

The busiest international air corridors for total arrivals and departures in November were

• Mexico with 3.3 million passengers (down 0.4 percent year over year),
• Canada with 2.2 million (down 13.6 percent),
• the UK with 1.4 million (down 3 percent),
• Japan with 926,000 (up 11.5 percent), and
• the Dominican Republic with 801,000 (up 8.3 percent).

The busiest US international gateways in November were New York JFK at 2.5 million passengers, followed by Miami at 2.0 million, Los Angeles at 1.8 million, Newark at 1.2 million, and San Francisco at 1.2 million.

See the October report for additional month-to-month comparisons.

Photo by Bhavya Patel on Unsplash