According to preliminary figures from the US National Travel and Tourism Office, overseas visits to the nation were down by 11.6 per cent in March 2025 compared with the same month the previous year.
In recent years, the US has also been an expensive destination for tourists, thanks to a strong dollar. It has not been unusual to find a cup of coffee costing $7 (£5.30) in cities such as New York. However, analysts believe the US currency’s value is on the cusp of weakening to levels not seen for years.
New York City is a famously popular tourist destination – but it’s high prices are notorious (Photo: Alexander Spatari/Getty)
“Recent developments should make a noticeable difference for visitors to the US. The pound is now 10.5 per cent stronger against the dollar when compared to the early January low [when Sterling fell to its lowest rate since November 2023] giving holidaymakers much more bang for their buck,” Dr Nick Rees, head of macro research for UK-based foreign exchange company Monex Europe, told The i Paper.
While US inflation rose by 3.5 per cent over the 12 months to March, thanks in part to dining out costing more, and figures from American Express Global Business Travel suggesting that the average cost of a hotel room in New York City will increase by almost 5 per cent during 2025, it’s likely that, by December, prices across the board will be lower.
“Savvy travellers can use the declining value of the dollar to their advantage and maximise holiday budgets,” James Lynn, co-founder of travel debit card company Currensea, says.
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He cites destinations in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, which have currencies directly linked to dollar.
Further afield, the Vietnamese dong is linked by a crawling peg – the point on a scale of exchange rates in which a currency’s value is allowed to go up or down frequently by small amounts within overall limits – to the US dollar.
The central banks of many Caribbean countries, including Barbados and Jamaica, are also pegged to the dollar.
Currencies pegged to the dollar could be affected by its instability
In Caribbean nations whose main source of income is derived from tourism paid in dollars, this is particularly critical.
“For currencies with explicit dollar pegs, the passthrough should be immediate, seeing these track the dollar lower on a one-for-one basis,” Dr Rees explains.
Caribbean countries such asJamaica, that have their currencies pegged to the US dollar, could become more affordable (Photo: Alison Wright/Getty)“Soft peg” currencies, which include the Venezuelan bolivar and the Hong Kong dollar, tends to be applied to a country’s reserve currency and can be modified over time, usually depending on international inflation rates.
The company’s figures show that the proportion of its members’ spending in the US has dropped by 10 per cent during the first three months of 2025 compared to the same period in the previous year.
Instead, more UK holidaymakers are heading to destinations including Spain, Greece, Italy and Thailand, where value for money and a warm welcome are all but guaranteed.
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