Tour guides and photographers in Washington say business has cratered this year, with some blaming closed landmarks, construction fencing and an all-consuming anger at a "toxic" President Donald Trump for keeping visitors away from the nation's capital, according to The Washington Post.
E. David Luria has run Washington Photo Safari for 27 years and hoped the city's celebration of America's 250th anniversary would boost bookings in 2026. Instead, he told the Post, his bookings are down about 50 percent from last year.
"People just aren't coming," said Luria, a D.C. resident for 56 years. "They just don't want to put up with it."
He keeps a running list of must-sees that have become hard to see: the empty, fenced-off Reflecting Pool, most of Lafayette Square, the White House's "no-longer-standing East Wing," the shuttered Kennedy Center and "swaths of the National Mall."
Carolyn Crouch, who founded Washington Walks in 1999, said this is her company's worst year outside the 2020 pandemic, with revenue down 70 percent for July and August and about 50 percent for the rest of the year.
"We are on track to conclude 2026 with a loss," she told the Post.
Crouch said closures and fencing are only part of the problem.
"The current administration has not only created lots of obstructed views and made the National Mall look in some places like a work in progress, it has also made our city's brand toxic," she said. "And our experience is that people seem to be voting with their feet and not traveling to Washington, D.C."
Canden Arciniega, co-owner of DC by Foot Tours, said the biggest complaint she hears is "we can't get our pictures without fences." Her "White House at Night" tour is shelved indefinitely, and her Capitol Hill tours dropped from "twice a day," Tuesday through Saturday, to "four times a week." Her international clients are down more than 50 percent, and the Canadian corporate and school groups she typically hosts have dried up, she said.
"I do feel that a lot of international guests are not coming for political reasons and visa reasons and, you know, fear of deportation," Arciniega told the Post. Guides also pointed to "Trump's attacks on longtime allies," tariffs, and visa and immigration policies.