Ireland visits to USA down 6pc in September – first negative month since Trump

The US Department of Commerce recorded 39,742 visits from Ireland in September, down 5.9pc on September 2024 and 13.5pc on pre-pandemic. Rolling annual was 490,902, up marginally by 0.2pc.

This is the first month that Irish visits to the USA have shown a negative return compared with 2024, following a trend established across Europe since the inauguration of Donald Trump. A decline in March was attributable to the change of date for Easter.

Overall visits to the USA were 2,826,200, down 7.7pc on 2024. Germany was down 20pc for the month on September 20254 and France was down 11.9pc. and England, also traditionally robust compared with that of mainland, down 3.2pc.

Canada remains the most dramatically declining market. The number of Canadian-resident return trips from the U.S. by air was down by 27.1pc.

All the major markets showed declines in September, with Western Europe down 10pc, south America down 6.9pc, Africa down 22.4pc and Asia down 7.9pc. Eastern Europe was down 2.6pc, while the Middle East and central America showed growth of 7.8pc and 9.7pc.