Tour guides in Donald Trump’s new-look capital say their businesses have cratered this year because of the president’s MAGA makeover.
Guides have told the Washington Post that the slump is also fueled by tourists, particularly international ones, who are angry about Trump’s attacks on longtime allies, his tariffs, and the administration’s visa and immigration policies.
“People just aren’t coming,” said photographer E. David Luria, a D.C. resident for 56 years, who estimates his bookings are down about 50 percent from last year. “They just don’t want to put up with it.”
The fenced-off Reflecting Pool, the mostly closed Lafayette Square, the White House’s no-longer-standing East Wing, the shuttered Kennedy Center, and a partially shuttered National Mall are hardly must-sees. The $900 million ballroom eyesore being built to replace the East Wing is also on the list.
“The biggest complaint we hear from visitors is we can’t get our pictures without fences,” said Canden Arciniega, 42, co-owner of D.C. by Foot Tours, who has had to tell visitors wanting a group shot in front of the White House that they are out of luck.
Her popular “White House at Night: Secrets, Scandals and Legends” tour has been shelved indefinitely because most of the sites are inaccessible. “Our Capitol Hill tours used to be twice a day, Tuesday through Saturday,” she said. “Now they’re offered just four times a week and are rarely full.”
Carolyn Crouch, 63, 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 said.
She blamed the politics too. “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,” Crouch said.
“And our experience is that people seem to be voting with their feet and not traveling to Washington, D.C.”
Arciniega said her company’s international clients have dropped more than 50 percent, and Canadian corporate and school groups have evaporated.
“I do feel that a lot of international guests are not coming for political reasons and visa reasons and, you know, fear of deportation,” she said.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis rejected the guides’ claims. “This is a completely false narrative,” she said. “President Trump has transformed our nation’s capital from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike by removing violent criminals from the streets, cleaning up the parks, and making long-overdue renovations to public lands.”
The White House pointed to more than 1,100 park benches installed or refurbished, 134 rat-resistant trash cans, and the removal of 154 homeless encampments.
At the Reflecting Pool last month, the Daily Beast’s Swamp found the basin empty and fenced off three weeks after a giant storm thwarted the revamp, with broken fencing, litter, and debris still strewn around.
Trump started the project in April, predicting it would be done in “two weeks.” Twenty weeks later, the White House still can’t say when it will finish. The contractor has admitted that problems with the renovation itself caused the liner to fail, not “evil, sick” vandals.
Four statues on Arlington Memorial Bridge have now been covered in 24-karat gold leaf, at a cost of more than $5 million, double the original $2.5 million budget. None were ready for the July 4 celebrations that prompted the project.
