The International Trade Administration’s updated States and Cities Visited Monitor reveals an exceptionally uneven distribution of international visitors across the United States — and the implications for destination managers, tourism marketers and policymakers are significant.
United States (Tourism Reporter) — There is a map of America that international visitors draw for themselves, year after year, through their booking decisions, flight searches, hotel reservations and physical presence. And that map looks very different from the one many of America’s destination marketing organisations would prefer them to draw.
It is a map of extraordinary concentration: a handful of gateway states absorbing more than three-fifths of overseas visitor traffic, while a small group of major metropolitan areas accounts for nearly half of all international city visits. Beyond them lie vast stretches of a continent-sized country that capture only a fraction of international tourism demand — and, with it, the visitor spending, jobs, tax revenues and hospitality activity that accompany those arrivals.
The National Travel and Tourism Office’s U.S. States and Cities Visited Monitor, published for calendar year 2025 through the International Trade Administration’s data visualisation platform, provides the most authoritative annual picture of where international visitors actually go in the United States. The latest data confirms a pattern of extraordinary geographic concentration — one that deserves closer attention from destination managers, tourism policymakers, aviation strategists and officials at both state and federal level.
That concentration also raises a larger strategic question: if the United States wants to attract 100 million international visitors annually by 2030, where will those additional visitors go — and how will the country persuade them to look beyond the gateways they already know?
Florida: 9.34 Million International Visitors and the Largest Single-Year Gain
Florida’s position as the most visited U.S. state by overseas travellers in 2025 — with 9.34 million international visitors, 480,000 more than in 2024 — is the headline finding from the NTTO monitor and the figure that sets the context for the wider distribution of international tourism across America.
At 9.34 million visitors, Florida operates at a scale comparable with major international destinations in its own right. Few sub-national tourism markets anywhere in the world attract that volume of overseas visitors in a single year.
The 480,000 increase — the largest absolute gain recorded by any U.S. state between 2024 and 2025 — further underlines Florida’s strength in the international market. Its proximity to Latin America and the Caribbean, strong cultural and commercial links with the region, and extensive air connectivity give the state a structural advantage in attracting visitors from some of the United States’ most important overseas and near-overseas source markets.
At the centre of that advantage is Miami International Airport, whose extensive connectivity with Latin America and the Caribbean has helped establish Florida as one of the principal gateways between the United States and the wider Western Hemisphere.
But Florida’s appeal extends well beyond gateway access. Miami, Orlando, Tampa Bay and the state’s extensive leisure infrastructure combine beaches, theme parks, shopping, cruises, entertainment and resort accommodation into one of America’s most diversified international tourism propositions.
The result is a powerful combination of geography, connectivity, product depth and established visitor familiarity. Florida does not simply attract international visitors because it is easy to reach; it has built a tourism ecosystem around that connectivity that gives travellers multiple reasons to stay, spend and return.
The intelligence point is important: Florida’s lead is not just a reflection of visitor numbers. It demonstrates how a destination can turn gateway status into sustained international market power when connectivity is matched by a deep and diversified tourism product.
New York City: 8.915 Million and the Urban Primacy of the American Brand
New York City’s position as the leading U.S. city-MSA visited by overseas travellers — with 8.915 million international visitors in 2025 — is unsurprising given the strength of its global brand. But the scale of that dominance offers an important lesson for every other American urban destination competing for international attention.
New York is arguably the United States’ most powerful global city brand. Its skyline, neighbourhoods, cultural institutions and landmarks have been embedded in films, television, literature, music and popular culture for generations. That exposure has created something exceptionally valuable in destination marketing: pre-existing desire. Travellers arrive with an image of New York already formed long before they begin planning their trip.
The 8.915 million figure places New York ahead of Orlando, Los Angeles, Miami and every other U.S. metropolitan destination in the NTTO’s 2025 ranking. More significant than the lead itself, however, is the city’s ability to attract visitors from a remarkably diverse range of international markets.
New York also benefits from an unusually deep visitor economy. Premium hotels, global retail brands, Broadway, museums, restaurants, nightlife, major sporting events and internationally recognised attractions give overseas visitors multiple reasons to visit — and multiple opportunities to spend once they arrive.
For competing American destinations, the lesson is not that another city should attempt to become “the next New York”. It is that global tourism leadership is built when destination identity becomes embedded in the traveller’s imagination long before the booking is made.
New York’s advantage, ultimately, is not simply the number of visitors it receives. It is the extraordinary amount of global awareness that already exists before those visitors ever land.
The 62.5 Per Cent Concentration: America’s Geographic Inequality Problem
The combined 62.5 per cent share held by the five leading states is perhaps the clearest indication of the structural imbalance in America’s international tourism economy — and a significant consideration for the country’s ambition to reach 100 million international visitors annually.
Five states attract nearly two-thirds of all overseas visitors. That concentration is striking in a country of 50 states whose geography encompasses an extraordinary range of landscapes, cities, cultural experiences and natural attractions.
The remaining 45 states account for just 37.5 per cent of overseas visitor traffic. Among them are destinations with enormous international potential — from the Grand Canyon and Glacier National Park to Nashville, New Orleans, the Great Smoky Mountains, South Dakota’s Black Hills and the Route 66 corridor through Illinois.
The issue, therefore, is not simply whether these destinations have products worth visiting. Many clearly do. The challenge is access, visibility and distribution.
International visitors tend to follow established gateways because those gateways have the strongest air connectivity, the greatest concentration of accommodation and tourism infrastructure, and the highest levels of recognition in overseas markets. That creates a self-reinforcing cycle: more visitors support more flights; more flights improve accessibility; better accessibility encourages more visitors.
Breaking that cycle will require more than encouraging travellers to “visit beyond the gateways”. It will require better international air connectivity, stronger destination marketing, easier onward travel, and compelling reasons for visitors to extend their trips beyond the cities through which they first enter the country.
For America’s less-visited states, the opportunity is enormous. But converting that opportunity into international arrivals requires moving from a tourism model built around gateway concentration to one designed around geographic distribution.
Puerto Rico’s 60.1 Per Cent Growth: The Most Important Single Data Point in the Monitor
Puerto Rico’s 60.1 per cent year-on-year increase in overseas visitors — the largest percentage gain recorded by any U.S. state or territory in the 2025 monitor — is arguably the dataset’s most striking finding. It is both a powerful recovery signal and a useful case study in how a destination can rebuild international demand after prolonged disruption.
The figure, however, needs to be read against Puerto Rico’s starting point. The island’s tourism economy has been recovering from the combined impact of Hurricane Maria in 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, alongside infrastructure and economic challenges that have complicated its recovery. A 60.1 per cent increase from a depressed or recovering base is not directly comparable with the same growth rate achieved by an already mature tourism market. Even so, the scale of the increase points to a significant strengthening of Puerto Rico’s international tourism position.
The recovery reflects the importance of infrastructure investment, product development and sustained destination marketing in rebuilding visitor confidence. Puerto Rico has increasingly positioned its natural landscapes, Afro-Caribbean culture, gastronomy and distinctive island identity as assets capable of supporting a premium international tourism proposition, rather than relying primarily on its proximity to the U.S. mainland.
The composition of that growth is particularly worth watching. If Puerto Rico continues to attract more visitors from European and Latin American markets, it could strengthen the island’s position as an international destination in its own right rather than simply an extension of the U.S. domestic tourism market.
There is a broader strategic lesson here. Strong growth does not always come from destinations with the largest existing visitor bases. Puerto Rico’s experience suggests that recovery, renewed positioning and access to new source markets can materially alter a destination’s place within the international visitor map.
And that makes the 60.1 per cent figure more than a record growth statistic. It is evidence that the geography of American inbound tourism can change — when destinations give international travellers a compelling reason to change their established patterns.
The 48.9 Per Cent Urban Concentration: What City Primacy Means for Regional Tourism
The 48.9 per cent combined share of the five leading city-MSAs provides the urban counterpart to the concentration seen at state level — and highlights another structural challenge for destinations seeking a larger share of America’s international visitor economy.
New York, Los Angeles, Orlando, Miami and the other leading metropolitan gateway collectively account for almost half of overseas visitors recorded across U.S. city destinations. That leaves the remaining international visitor traffic distributed across a much larger group of metropolitan areas, including Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston, Washington, DC, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle, New Orleans and Nashville.
The significance goes beyond the rankings themselves. International visitors tend to build their American itineraries around recognised gateway cities, where direct air connectivity, established tourism infrastructure and global brand recognition reinforce one another. For less dominant urban destinations, competing for international visitors therefore requires more than having an attractive tourism product. They must overcome the accessibility and awareness advantages enjoyed by the established gateways.
Chicago offers an instructive example. The Illinois tourism performance covered by Tourism Reporter last week — 115 million total visitors and more than $50 billion in visitor spending in 2025 — demonstrates the scale of the wider state tourism economy. O’Hare International Airport provides Chicago with a formidable connectivity platform, supporting both domestic and international demand.
Yet Chicago’s international tourism position remains smaller than its overall economic and domestic tourism profile might suggest. That gap makes international air connectivity particularly important. The United Airlines expansion announced for 2027, which Tourism Reporter covered on 26 August, is part of the infrastructure required to strengthen Chicago’s connections with additional international markets.
The wider lesson is clear: city tourism growth is increasingly a connectivity game as much as a marketing game. A destination can possess the attractions, hotels and visitor infrastructure to compete globally, but without the flights and distribution networks that put it within easy reach of international travellers, its potential remains largely unrealised.
The Route 66 and Secondary-State Opportunity: Reading the 37.5 Per Cent
The 37.5 per cent of overseas visitor traffic that goes to the 45 states outside the leading group represents where some of the United States’ greatest untapped international tourism potential lies. For these destinations, relatively modest gains in connectivity, marketing and visitor experience could produce meaningful increases in international demand.
Tourism Reporter has documented several examples throughout 2026 of secondary American destinations beginning to strengthen their international appeal. The Route 66 Centennial, for example, has brought renewed attention to a 2,400-mile corridor spanning eight states. Illinois’ Middle of Everything campaign generated an estimated $904 million in additional visitor spending, while Tennessee’s $32.5 billion tourism economy demonstrates the commercial power of cultural assets such as Nashville and the state’s music heritage. Washington, meanwhile, is building on Seattle’s international connectivity and the state’s combination of technology, urban and nature-based tourism.
The opportunity is not necessarily to displace America’s established gateways. It is to turn gateway visits into broader itineraries.
A traveller arriving in New York could be encouraged to continue to Nashville, Memphis or Chicago. A visitor entering through Los Angeles could extend the trip to the Grand Canyon, Sedona or Santa Fe. A Miami arrival could become the starting point for a wider Florida itinerary encompassing the Florida Keys, Everglades and other destinations.
That distinction is important. Secondary destinations do not need to compete with America’s gateway cities; they need to become easier and more compelling additions to the journeys those gateways already generate.
The ambition to reach 100 million international visitors by 2030 therefore creates a strategic opportunity for the 45 states currently receiving the smaller share of overseas traffic. The growth cannot come from the established gateways alone. It will depend increasingly on whether destinations beyond them can improve international connectivity, strengthen their visibility in overseas markets and give visitors convincing reasons to travel further into the country.
The NTTO data ultimately points to a simple proposition: America does not necessarily need more international visitors choosing its gateways. It needs more of those visitors going beyond them.
The Policy Takeaway: What the Monitor Demands From Decision-Makers
The 2025 NTTO States and Cities Visited Monitor carries a clear message for destination managers, tourism policymakers, DMO leaders, aviation executives and government officials shaping America’s international tourism strategy.
The concentration of overseas visitors — 62.5 per cent across the five leading states and 48.9 per cent across the five leading city-MSAs — is not simply a measure of where international visitors go today. It highlights where the greatest opportunity to broaden America’s visitor economy may lie.
For the United States to move towards its 100 million international visitor ambition, growth will need to extend beyond the established gateways. That means stronger investment in secondary destination marketing, regional aviation connectivity and internationally relevant tourism products that give visitors compelling reasons to extend their journeys beyond the cities through which they first enter the country.
Puerto Rico’s 60.1 per cent increase offers an encouraging example of what can happen when a destination strengthens its product, marketing and accessibility over time. Its performance demonstrates that the map of international tourism is not fixed.
It can be redrawn.
The strategic question for America’s less-visited destinations is whether they are prepared to make the sustained investments required to put themselves on that map — and stay there.
The NTTO’s U.S. States and Cities Visited Monitor for 2025 was published by the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. The interactive tool provides state- and city-level visitor data, percentage changes and market shares. Full data: trade.gov/us-states-cities-visited-overseas-travelers. NTTO Travel and Tourism Monitors: trade.gov/travel-and-tourism-monitors
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