Travel intent to U.S. remains below 2024 levels
A new analysis by Mabrian reveals a softening in travel intent to the U.S. up to September 2025 among key outbound markets, including Europe, the GCC, and Australia, compared to 2024. The data highlights growing uncertainty among long-haul travellers and a more cautious approach to planning trips to the U.S. that affects the country's competitive positioning as a destination.
BARCELPONA, SPAIN – A new analysis by Mabrian, the travel intelligence platform, reveals a softening in global travel intent to the United States for 2025 among key inbound markets, with demand levels remaining below those recorded in 2024. The findings are based on Mabrian's proprietary Share of Searches Index, which measures the demand market share positioning of the United States, based on the spontaneous global flight search behaviour as an indicator of travel interest.
Covering the period from January to April 2025, with travel dates extending through September, the study tracks millions of weekly flight searches to the U.S. from Europe, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and Australia.
The Share of Searches Index* indicates that travel intent to the U.S. has dropped moderately year-over-year across all markets analysed. European Union countries (EU 27) experienced a moderate -0.3 percentage point decline, while Australia and GCC countries both recorded a significant -0.5 percentage point decrease compared to the same period in 2024. 'In the context of millions of searches, these variations represent meaningful shifts in traveller sentiment and intention,' explains Carlos Cendra, Partner and Director of Marketing and Communications at Mabrian, part of The Data Appeal Company – Almawave Group.
The performance of the Share of Searches Index highlights the sensitivity of the travellers' demand from all the inbound markets analysed. 'Rather than a lack of interest in visiting the U.S., our travel intent data highlights long-haul travellers' growing uncertainty about planning trips well in advance, with booking lead times readjusting toward shorter planning horizons,' says Cendra. 'It is precisely during the planning phase that the U.S. is in risk of losing competitive ground, as travellers might be considering alternative destinations'.
Moderate decrease in travel intent in Europe's key inbound markets
As it happened after January 2025 U.S. presidential inauguration, the tariffs announcement from last April impacted European inspirational demand, still below 2024 levels in the period analysed. By the end of April, the U.S. captured 5.5% of the total flight searches launched by the EU 27 countries during the period analysed. This compound Share of Searches Index fluctuated throughout the period analysed, taking a moderate decrease, averaging -0.3 percentage points year-over-year.
British demand, while initially impacted, showed signs of recovering by briefly surpassing last year's levels in mid-March, but in early April, after tariffs were announced by Trump Administration, inspirational demand dropped again -0.8 percentage points year-over-year (moderate decrease). By the end of April, Share of Searches Index settled at 8.1% indicating a weak recovery trend that might benefit from the bilateral agreement on tariffs between the both the UK and the U.S. announced on May 8th.
Average Share of Searches Index for Germany, Italy, and France settles around 4.7% by end of April. Germany and Italy each recorded significant decrease nearing -1 percentage point compared to 2024 after the U.S. government updated their tariffs policy, an announcement that had a similar effect in France. In fact. French travel intent, that was converging to 2024 levels, to slightly drop again by mid-April, accumulating a -0.5% percentage points moderate decrease year-over-year during the weeks analysed.
Uncertainty in the GCC's and a mixed outlook for Australia
Even though it is not still among the most demanded destinations by Gulf Arab countries, the U.S. concentrates 1.7% of the total flight searches launched by these countries between February and April, and overall inspirational demand remains below 2024 levels, showing a significant decrease of -0.5 percentage points year over year.
The Share of Searches Index shows that travel demand from the United Arab Emirates dropped weekly by -0.75 percentage points on average, a significant decrease considering that, by end of April, the U.S. market share in the UAE settled to 2.1%. Also, by the end of April, 0.9% of flight searches from Saudi Arabia aimed at the U.S., dropping a significant average of -0.3 percentage points year over year.
Finally, and while Australian demand to the U.S. has consistently trailed 2024 levels since February 2025, the last week of April saw the first positive year-over-year shift in ten weeks. The Search of Searches Index increased by +0.3 percentage points, reaching 3.5%, signalling a moderate recovery that will require monitoring in the weeks ahead.
* Mabrian's Share of Searches Index is proprietary index that reflects the strength of travel demand to a destination based on the global flight searches behaviour. Mabrian's assessment of the Share of Searches Index performance applies a three-point scale for increase or decrease (minor, moderate, significant), based on the magnitude of percentage point variations and their relative impact on the overall index value.
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