DC tourism has taken a hit

Looking to make a trip to the nation’s capital? There may be a lot less to do than usual. The actions of the Trump administration, along with the ongoing government shutdown, have reduced the number of attractions available to the public. The biggest victims are small businesses and restaurants that are suffering from a lack of customers.

Not much to see

Washington, D.C. tourism has taken repeated blows this year. Beginning in the summer, “images of National Guard troops and federal officers stationed across D.C.” worked to “deter some would-be tourists from visiting the city,” said Axios. In October, the government shutdown caused the closure of many top sightseeing attractions in Washington, including the Library of Congress and the 21 museums that are part of the Smithsonian Institution. While some of D.C.’s attractions, like the “privately funded museums, along with its open-air national monuments and memorials and even its high-end restaurants,” are still open for business, the other closures are “acting as an accelerant” to the lack of tourism, said The New York Times.

Without tourists, “everything from the small mom-and-pop sandwich shops to the larger entities are impacted,” said Elliott Ferguson, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Destination DC, the city’s tourism marketing organization, to CNN. “We are in the prime months and weeks for convention business and tourism. So, the impact is significant.” Tourism is one of the largest contributors to the D.C. economy. In 2024, over 27 million people visited the city and spent $11.4 billion. In October alone, the revenue per available hotel room, a commonly used metric, dropped by nearly 9%.

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Capital punishment

Government shutdowns have notoriously harmed the capital’s tourism industry. The previous one in President Donald Trump’s first term “cost D.C. an estimated $47 million in lost revenue,” said Fortune. This is “in addition to the harder-to-measure toll inflicted by decreased discretionary spending on hotels, transportation and entertainment.” To avoid repeating history, Destination DC has “revived its ‘D.C. is Open’ campaign, which first debuted during the 2013 government shutdown,” said the Times.

The organization is “letting people know what’s open to them and available, and that includes several museums like the Spy Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts,” said DC News Now. It is also “making tourists and visitors aware of incentives being offered at museums people normally have to pay to visit.” The holiday season is usually a peak time of visits to the capital. “I’m nervous about December because we usually get our last push before slow winter season with holiday travelers, and I’m not sure they are going to come now,” said Canden Arciniega, the chief operating officer of the tour company DC by Foot, to the Times.

Washington, D.C., is not the only affected city. The government shutdown has already “taken an over $1 billion toll on travel,” said Fortune. Other publicly funded destinations, including national parks, have been similarly impacted, experiencing staffing and maintenance problems. Air travel has additionally been suffering, making travel harder and more unpredictable.