Summer’s Turbulent Economic Conditions Are Impacting Tourism
The World Travel & Tourism Council is forecasting a 6.45% drop in 2025 tourism spending compared to 2024. Las Vegas made headlines with a reported 11.3% drop in visitors. Anecdotal inquires are showing popular tourism regions in Wisconsin, Maine, and similar locations are less busy than 2024. (Sources below.)
Several leading reasons:
- Economic turmoil with tariffs and trade disputes impacting international travel—specifically from Canada (which is down 30%)
- US consumer spending is less confident as sectors of the economy soften
- Decreases in ad spending from DMOs and other travel services
- AdWeek summarized the situation with an excellent infographic
3 Things Your Tourism Entity Should Do When Numbers Are Down
Large Regional DMO or small-town CVB, the impact to room tax or resort tax can throw a wrench into next year’s planning. What are some actions you can take to keep your communities bustling even when the economy slows down?
1) Audit Your Marketing and Advertising Performance
Don’t slash your ad budget before evaluating performance. Focus your budget-saving measures on advertising that underperforms in key metrics. Which ad channels deliver the best:
- Average time on site
- Number of pages viewed
- Clicks to your member links
For the outside ads, trust but verify. Make sure you’re cross-checking Google Analytics with the data provided by the advertiser. Differences in reporting platforms can track bots as users. Google Analytics will give you a more accurate snapshot than many advertisers will admit.
If you need a more comprehensive review of your marketing, Signalfire provides a Marketing Assessment and Plan (MAP) that reviews your website, social media, and more.
2) Partner with Members on Big Ads
Want to break into that major metro area, but the ad buy-in is a bit more than you can swing? By opening the opportunity to share the ad buy with your members, you create your own “co-op” opportunity.
With a bit of planning and a good set of creative ad designs, you can merge the interests of your organization and a select few members. The result can be a win-win for everyone. What kind of “big ads” make sense?
- Targeted search ads across a major metropolitan area for an extended period
- Sponsored content in a major (digital) publication profiling your area
- Using a social media ad campaign to break into a new metropolitan area that shows signs of growth in your website traffic data
With a little planning, cooperation, and some basic data analysis, your organization can punch above your weight!
3) Double Down on Your Events
Events are one of the most searched topics for travelers and likely one of your top five website pages (along with your web cams). A lot of organizations are also sharing that event attendance is slipping. Have the events been on autopilot since the crazy travel levels of the early 20’s?
A couple ideas that might help with your events:
- Having conversations with your participating members may provide some insights to what event attendees are saying during the event. It will also give strong indications of spending levels and general enthusiasm.
- Survey your attendees to see what they liked or disliked about your recent event(s). Some event ideas may just run their course and need a refresh. Be sure to ask for ZIP codes to help track where they’re coming from!
- Review your event promotional plan. Looking for younger families to attend events? Maybe local radio spots need to give way to a local Instagram campaign?
- Put video to work by recording and posting to social media ahead of the event. Feature the different activities, see if local members can give previews (think food preview or a brief music clip), or even answering event questions (parking, prices, etc.).
Bonus idea to get them to spend the night: Showcase breakfast hotspots, great nighttime activities, and side adventures that can turn a daytrip into a weekend excursion.
What You Can Do About It
Events are the WHY people travel. By showcasing the event and what they can do beyond the event will help boost attendance and increase hotel occupancy. It’s time to get scrappy and take some chances with your marketing. While keeping it on brand, of course.
Hope is not lost. These ideas are just the start of things you can do to help put heads in beds and feet on the street during events.
What If You Don’t Have the Data?
Does the end of the month bring report anxiety? You dread the time bopping between Google Analytics, social media channels, your email marketing tool, and more… The finished spreadsheet looks like a cloud of meaningless numbers.
Just imagine if you had a single link that automatically refreshed all your marketing data. Each metric displayed in a visual layout that made sense—even to your board members. No more spreadsheets. Just a link. It can even be exported as a PDF.
Are you ready for a marketing data dashboard that saves you hours a month?
Links to sources
AdWeek Article: https://www.adweek.com/category/data-points
Infograph: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/infographic-summer-tourism-us-decline/
State of Retail 2025 Report: https://www.consumeredge.com/resources/the-state-of-retail-2025-general-merchandise/
Las Vegas Tourism Decline: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/08/nx-s1-5492413/las-vegas-trump-summer-travel-decline#:~:text=Wrong%20turn%20leads%20to%20hundreds,in%20international%20spending%20this%20year