US travel industry expected to bounce back faster due to visa reforms

By Lebawit Lily Girma 

America’s travel industry has gone through a sluggish recovery since the Covid-19 pandemic—reaching just 84% of its pre-pandemic international arrivals by the close of 2023. That’s in stark contrast to global competitors such as France and Spain, which blew past 2019 visitation levels that same year. One the major culprits: significant visa processing delays at US embassies around the world. 

Now there’s hope for a major turnaround for the US travel and tourism sector. At a press conference on Oct. 29, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said they expect a faster rebound in inbound visitation to the US, citing a long-awaited reduction in wait times for visa appointments and processing, which will help the US take advantage of major sporting events taking place there in the next 10 years.

 

 

In the 12 months up to Sept. 30, the US State Department issued a record 11.5 million visas, 8.5 million of which were visitor visas, said Blinken. The median wait time for first-time visitors to receive an appointment for a visa interview at a US consulate has dropped to 60 days from more than 400 days.

 

Blinken added that the State Department plans to increase the number of visa appointments by 1 million (8.7%) in 2025. These shorter wait times are helping boost travel to the US, which is now expected to reach its pre-pandemic level of 79.4 million visitors next year, according to the Commerce Department. By 2026, the country will be on track to receive 90 million visitors—a benchmark the government did not anticipate reaching until 2027. 

 

The two secretaries said their respective offices have been closely collaborating to remove roadblocks that have slowed the rebound of US inbound tourism—which brought in $155 billion in direct spending from international visitors in 2023, according to the US Travel Association.

 

“More people are traveling to the United States than ever before, and more Americans are traveling the world than ever before,” said Blinken.

 

The rebound for America’s inbound tourism will come ahead of what Raimondo and Blinken both described as a “mega-decade” for sporting events in the US. These include the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be jointly hosted with Canada and Mexico and is expected to attract as many as 6 million visitors to 11 US cities, including New York, Miami, Boston and Dallas, according to the US Travel Association, and the Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games in 2028. The US will also host the Rugby World Cup in 2031, making it the first North American country to do so. 

 

These games represent “a huge amount of economic activity,” said Raimondo, emphasizing the role they’ll play in supporting employment. In 2023 the $1.3 trillion in total travel spending—12% of which came from international arrivals—supported more than 15 million American jobs and led to an economic footprint of $2.3 trillion, equivalent to 2.5% of national gross domestic product. “What we are doing today is making it easier to travel to this country, which will be a real shot in the arm for the travel and tourism industry.”

 

“We applaud the Biden administration for taking important steps to welcome international visitors,” says Geoff Freeman, chief executive officer at US Travel, which has long advocated for the streamlining of visa processing. “Prioritizing the reduction of visa wait times will allow the United States to be far more globally competitive for decades to come.”

 

Equally important to Americans if not as contributive to the domestic travel economy, US passport processing wait times have been reduced to 4 to 6 weeks, down from 6 to 8 weeks in December 2023; a record 24.5 million US passports were issued in fiscal year 2024. The State Department also introduced online passport renewal in September, which is further speeding up turnaround times, said Blinken. “We’re modernizing,” he continued. “Already, more than a million Americans have taken advantage of online passport renewal.” 

 

The projected boost to US inbound visitation also comes at a propitious time, as US travelers are reining in their spending, softening domestic trip demand.