How the U.S. Tourism Slump Is Hitting Short-Term Rentals: Exclusive
Photo Credit: A busy day in Times Square. Wikimedia Commons / Jakubhal
Skift Take
Headline tourism numbers undersell how hard the international slowdown is hitting U.S. vacation rentals.
The slowdown in international tourism to the United States has been especially hard on vacation rentals, according to AirDNA data shared exclusively with Skift.
First-quarter data on short-term rental demand largely mirrors the inbound tourism slowdown tracked across the U.S. since early 2025, with the analytics firm tracking a decline from some of the largest sources of tourists.
But AirDNA’s data shows even sharper declines. International short-term rental demand was down 4.7% in January, for instance, compared with a 3.5% decline in international visitation.
The decline in short-term rental demand from abroad suggests leisure travel — the backbone of short-term rental bookings — is taking a significant hit from international