This year is a big one for USA – it is the country’s 250th birthday, Route 66 celebrates its 100th anniversary and the World Cup kicks off there later this month.
Despite this, The Land of the Free is going through a very bumpy time with its tourism figures.
Visitor numbers to the States declined by 5.5 per cent in 2025 compared to the year before, according to World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). International visitor spending fell too, taking a 4.6 per cent hit to $176 billion.
Hotels for the World Cup aren’t as full as anticipated either, with 80 per cent of respondents to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) having said bookings are below expectations.
The man appointed to tackle this issue is Ambassador Nick Adams, who was made the very first Special Presidential Envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism, and Values in March.
Adams says he is ‘beyond delighted, honoured, humbled, privileged to serve in this capacity’ and is incredibly optimistic.
In fact, he has set a ‘personal goal’ of bringing in ‘100 million international visitors per year, on average, by 2030’.
‘Now, it is definitely a bold goal, but I think it is one that is eminently achievable if we show the world what we are made of,’ he exclusively tells the Daily Mail.
Ambassador Nick Adams was made the very first Special Presidential Envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism, and Values in March
Despite visitor numbers to The States declining by 5.5 per cent in 2025, Adams has a ‘personal goal’ of bringing in ‘100 million international visitors per year, on average, by 2030’
But, on whether he blames President Donald Trump for the recent decline, Adams says, ‘Not at all. No one has done more for hospitality than President Trump. He was building hotels and resorts before he was running the country.
‘If there’s ever been a president who understands and gets tourism and travel in this industry, it is him. The travel industry in the United States has been begging successive administrations to have a minister for tourism or a special presidential envoy for tourism and President Trump is the only one who’s delivered.’
The Ambassador insists, ‘We are going to make sure that America is known worldwide as being welcoming, hospitable, safe, and a place where you can come and make lots of memories and take them home with you and remember them forever.’
In the past year, five-year social media history checks for tourists have been proposed, as well as ESTA changes involving more in-depth information collected from visitors, such as past email addresses and family information.
But Adams argues ‘some misperceptions’ have been put out about the planned social media checks.
He blames, ‘dishonest media and people that are invested in fake narratives to injure the American economy and hurt America in its finest hour’ and insists the social media checks have ‘never been implemented’.
‘I can tell you that 99.9 per cent of people who get their ESTA in good time, who travel to the United States as tourists, do not encounter a problem,’ Adams adds.
‘This idea that you are going to arrive in the United States, you’re going to be detained, your phone is going to be confiscated. Your social media over the last five years is going to be pulled over, and then you’re going to be put back on a plane and sent back to where you came from, is just not true.’
Adams also argues ‘some misperceptions’ have been put out about the planned social media checks
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But as for when exactly the proposed social media checks will come into play, he doesn’t ‘have any update on that’.
Trump has massively clamped down on immigration since being elected – with reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deporting individuals across the country.
In December, the Department of Homeland Security celebrated removing more than 2.5 million people from the US during the first year of Trump’s second administration.
The matter has been widely reported on, and in July 2025 British grandmother Karen Newton, 65, from Hertfordshire was detained by ICE agents for six weeks despite having a valid visa.
In another case, British backpacker Rebecca Burke, 28, from Monmouthshire, south Wales, was detained in a cell for almost three weeks last year after she tried to cross into Canada.
The graphic artist was told she should have applied for a working visa rather than a tourist visa.
But, at the recent 2026 WTTC Leadership Cruise Adams insisted, ‘America is open. America is ready. And America is glad you came.’
‘I say to anybody that is considering traveling to the United States as a tourist, if you want to know what it’s like to visit the United States of America, talk to a neighbour, talk to a friend, talk to a work colleague who has travelled recently to the United States,’ he tells the Mail.
‘And they will give you the reality, which is, that Americans are the most welcoming, hospitable people that you can possibly find.’
Adams puts the 5.5 per cent ‘little bit of a dip’ down to people delaying their visit for America’s ‘golden era’.
‘I think a significant part of that can be attributed to the fact that people that were planning on visiting the United States thought to themselves, “Hmm, why don’t we wait a year for America’s big year of 2026, when there’s the World Cup and the 250?” So I think there was a little bit of that,’ he says.
Issues including ICE agents detaining Brits have been reported on over recent months since Trump began clamping down on immigration
Adams puts the 5.5 per cent ‘little bit of a dip’ down to people delaying their visit for America’s ‘golden era’
The Ambassador predicts ‘things are on the up’ in terms of tourism in the US.
‘I have the latest data, and the latest data is very clear,’ he argues. ‘America has rebounded. There is an uptick.’
Adams claims there are nearly 93,000 flights scheduled between the United Kingdom and Europe to the United States between June and October, which he says is a three per cent increase compared to the same period last year, citing statistics from aviation data analysts at Cirium.
He also claims, ‘The World Travel and Tourism Council has forecast a nearly five per cent increase in international visitor spending in the United States.’
‘So things are on the up. We are looking good and we’re going to have the best summer we’ve ever had,’ Adams insists.
