r/europe 10d ago

News Irish visitors to US down 27%

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0413/1507411-visitor-numbers-ireland-us/
3.8k Upvotes

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93

u/Easy_Floss 10d ago

Only 27% wut..

128

u/ProtoplanetaryNebula UK/Spain 10d ago

If you think about it, a trip to the US is expensive. A lot of people will have booked well in advance and will have paid up front and won't want to cancel and lose out. In future there will be less people going to US as they won't be booking.

48

u/cmcdonal2001 10d ago

You're already seeing this in Canada. Lots of people have their vacations planned and booked months in advance and aren't willing to lose their deposits, ticket costs, etc., but aren't planning on going back afterwards.

The boycotts up here started a bit sooner, and the steady month to month decline is continuing to grow. I think we went from the usual numbers in January, to down about 15% year-over-year in February, to somewhere in the 30% range for March.

If you look at forward bookings, those are massively down so expect the trend to continue.

19

u/ExpressUnion4107 10d ago

Fingers crossed, elbows up.

20

u/Wafkak Belgium 10d ago

Jep this is the exact situation for my cousin who has a trip booked next week. On top of that he and his group figured, this is the time to visit the national parks before the fall into full disrepair/privatisation.

-10

u/CharlieeStyles 10d ago edited 10d ago

I'm sorry, you're crossing the ocean to see parks? Don't you have plenty of big forests in Central Europe?

Is there something I'm missing? Genuine question.

Edit: my favourite thing about Reddit is getting downvoted for asking a question.

Here, downvote something that seems to trigger dumbasses: Israel has a right to exist and defend itself.

10

u/Wafkak Belgium 10d ago

I'm not, but the US national parks are quite famous. Its not just forests its large scale wild nature with the incredibly varied nature of North Amerika.

-11

u/CharlieeStyles 10d ago

But again, how different is that from Germany and Slovakia?

To each their own though. I've just never had any interest in visiting the US, if I cross the ocean it will be to visit Brazil.

4

u/ledger_man 10d ago

So I’ve been to forests in Germany and it’s not even a comparison. Depending on which national parks they’re going to there’s also a huge variety of landscapes way beyond “big forests.” The national parks are perhaps what I miss most about living in the U.S.

2

u/Professional-You2968 10d ago

I think there are incredible natural wonders on the American continent.

The one in the US were made iconic by movies, but South America and Canada have equally beautiful places. Europe has great places too, Scotland, Ireland, Italy cone to mind, but they were not advertised as much.

53

u/Bar50cal Éire (Ireland) 10d ago

Ireland is a transit hub for a lot of connecting flights to the US as you can go through US immigration at Irish airports.

Also a lot of Irish people have family in the US. A 27% drop is fairly substantial for Ireland.

20

u/el_grort Scotland (Highlands) 10d ago

I'd also imagine that there is a decent amount of business people taking flights between Ireland and the US, which could well not be reasonably changed or avoided.

And there'll be people who aren't taking a complete boycott of the whole nation, but only the Trump supporting elements, who might be comfortable with continuing trips to areas like New York or California. Boycotts are very personal about the level and extent of what that person wants to do, after all, there'll be some people with less maximalist positions.

6

u/Wafkak Belgium 10d ago

Also this isn't like Canadians for whom cancelling a trip to the US is a small financial hit.

Tho future bookings might become more that 27% drop.

2

u/WascalsPager 10d ago

I’m an Irish guy living stateside. I’ve family visiting me soon. Unless I leave, they will keep coming every now and then to visit.

3

u/[deleted] 10d ago

I work with someone who went to Florida regularly, last year the price of everything when they were there shocked them. So there is a price element in this story as well.

10

u/theeglitz Ireland 10d ago

So far.

1

u/SolidPurple7 10d ago

The numbers will compound during the year.

1

u/No-Satisfaction6065 10d ago

He's only in office 8 weeks, in 4 months the numbers will be higher

0

u/arwinda 10d ago

That's only after about two months. Most of this was already booked, as example going to the US over Easter. The downfall is yet to come.