“Europe is a winner” says Hilton. Not all would agree.

 We reported a while ago on the negative effect of the Trump Administration on inbound arrivals to the USA, but it seems there is a booming counterflow of Americans coming to Europe.

An article by the Financial Times reported that entries to the USA from Europe were down by over 2% in January-May 2025, while the number of Americans entering Europe was up by almost 6% in the same period. The is good news for high end European hotels, but perhaps not such good news for European travellers. The arrival of large numbers of high spending Americans is forecast to drive hotel prices in Europe even higher. “US visitors pay between 20 and 25 per cent more for hotel rooms than the average guest because they tend to book more expensive rooms and prefer flexible bookings.” This is bad news for European travellers who have already seen hotel prices rise by almost a quarter in the past three years. 

Dynamic pricing is probably also adding to rising prices as accommodation providers use AI to try and maximise their revenue. Some tips for avoiding these kinds of ‘sneaky’ price rises and beating the algorithms include:

• Use private browsing (incognito mode) when searching for travel deals.

• Clear cookies between visits to booking sites.

• Compare prices on multiple platforms (some might offer better first-time rates).

• Consider booking early or last-minute, but NEVER in between.

• Look for smaller booking agencies or book directly with the hotel to avoid algorithm spikes.

But even if we can find cheaper hotel rooms, we might have to share our destination with growing numbers of European and American tourists. More Americans are travelling to Europe at the same time that more Europeans are staying in Europe thanks to Trump and global instability. “Europe is . . . [already] buzzing but it will intensify”, the FT reports. This is certain to go down well with the numerous anti-tourism protest groups that have sprung up in Southern Europe recently. Although the demonstrations seemed not to attract enormous numbers of people, they did get plenty of attention from the media in Northern Europe and the US, where most of the tourists come from. The U.S. Embassy in Spain issued an alert ahead of anti-tourism demonstrations on June 15th, including in popular tourist destinations such as Barcelona. Maybe if the Americans heed these warnings, perhaps the hotel price hikes will be less dramatic.