Asked about the impact of tariffs and a looming recession on the report’s findings, Julia Simpson, president and chief executive officer at WTTC, seems largely unconcerned. “We expect international travel to continue its strong growth and spending this year, and that’s despite some short-term headwinds,” she tells Bloomberg. A lot has changed since the team wrapped up its research, but people are still prioritizing their trips, she says: “We don’t know where we’re going with the tariffs, but at the moment we’re seeing it as a kind of a blip in the numbers.”
