The US inbound tourism decline in 2025 deepened to 5.5%, placing the country among just four OECD member nations to record falling international arrivals last year, even as the bloc as a whole welcomed a record 847 million visitors, according to the OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2026 report.
The OECD-wide total represented a 3.4% increase on the prior year, building on growth of 8.1% in 2024. The contrast with the United States, Ireland, Germany and Canada (all of which posted negative figures) underlines how unevenly the post-pandemic recovery has spread across destinations.
Finland Posts Record Arrivals While US Inbound Tourism Declines
Finland recorded the strongest growth in international arrivals among tracked OECD countries, with inbound travel rising 16.5% to a record high. The result is consistent with the Nordic country’s broader positioning: in the same period it was named the world’s happiest country for the ninth consecutive year in the annual World Happiness Report, powered by data from the Gallup World Poll. That ranking, the OECD notes, has reinforced perceptions of Visit Finland as a safe, stable and high-quality destination.
Japan followed with a 15.8% increase in arrivals, South Korea recorded 15.7% growth, and Norway welcomed 12.5% more visitors. For Japan and South Korea, those gains build on a recovery that began in 2024, when arrivals surged by 47.1% and 48.4% respectively. The OECD attributed the continued strong performance in both markets partly to expanded air connectivity, which has made regional and city destinations easier to reach. Japan also continued to benefit from a weak yen, which lowered the cost of accommodation, dining, transport and attractions for foreign visitors.
Norway’s trajectory echoes Finland’s: both countries have become increasingly attractive to travellers seeking dramatic landscapes and outdoor experiences rather than established continental capitals. The shift toward experience-led, nature-based travel is reshaping origin-market choices across OECD source markets.
Economic Stakes: What the OECD Data Reveals About Tourism’s Weight
The scale of what is at stake for destination economies is underscored by figures published in the same OECD report. On average across member countries, tourism directly accounts for 4.0% of GDP, 6.3% of employment and 19.3% of service-related exports. That structural weight means a 5.5% drop in US inbound tourism (against a backdrop of global growth) has implications beyond visitor numbers alone, touching hotel occupancy rates, airline revenue and the wider hospitality supply chain.
For the United States, the OECD does not attribute the slowdown to a single cause. The report points instead to a combination of affordability pressures, safety perceptions, geopolitical tensions and extreme weather disruptions as the forces shaping traveller decisions. Ireland fell 2.8%, Germany 0.8% and Canada 0.6%, suggesting the pressures on some Western destinations are not confined to the United States, though the US decline is the steepest among the four.
The most pronounced shift in demand was in Asia, where the weak yen allowed Japan to attract budget-conscious premium travellers who might otherwise have chosen long-haul Western destinations. Israel recorded a 70.8% collapse in arrivals, reflecting the impact of the conflict in the Middle East on regional travel flows.
Despite the decline in inbound leisure traffic, Brand USA and the country’s network of convention centres and major business hubs continue to underpin significant volumes of business travel and international conference traffic, the OECD notes.
OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann, in an official press release accompanying the report, called for closer coordination between government and business: ‘Governments and businesses need to work together to sustain this growth and build resilience. This means applying the lessons of the pandemic and the conflict in the Middle East to strengthen crisis preparedness, and managing tourism and visitor flows to ensure the sector delivers lasting benefits.’
Looking ahead, one-third of OECD countries expect tourism performance to exceed 2025 levels by the end of this year, with many anticipating new records. The OECD cautions, however, that destinations currently benefiting from strong momentum cannot rely on it alone: long-term performance will depend on how well they anticipate geopolitical risks, manage rising travel costs and adapt to the accelerating shift toward experience-driven, nature-based itineraries.
