United Airlines is scheduled to report Q2 results this week. Delta reported results earlier this month; those results showed that the company’s business is stabilizing after a slow start to the summer.

But if you want to know how the summer travel season is going, look no further than the latest report on consumer prices, which came out this week. Prices for things like airline tickets and hotel stays fell.

Summer is usually go-time for the travel industry. Yet prices are down about 3% compared to a year ago. And if you want to know why, Nora Murphy can tell you. She owns and operates four Airbnb listings in Jersey City.

“People usually come to Jersey City not because it's so lovely — which it is — but also because of its proximity to get to Manhattan,” she said. (It’s right across the river.)

Murphy’s properties would normally be packed right now with mostly European travelers, but she’s only half full.

“There were guests who had already scheduled, but they are calling and canceling because they are afraid to be detained at the airports,” she said.

It’s not just international travelers who are pulling back.

“One in five Americans have planned less or plan to travel less going forward,” said Jeremy Goldman, senior director of content at eMarketer. “And more than half of Americans report that the current economic conditions — like tariffs, like rising prices — have indeed affected their travel plans for the year.”

It’s a double whammy: Both foreign travelers and Americans are cutting back simultaneously.

Economist Shannon Grein of Wells Fargo sees all of this as part of a bigger pattern — a pullback in discretionary services spending.

“Things like eating out, travel, personal professional care services, things that maybe we don't need to prioritize,” she explained.

And those are things that are sensitive to how consumers are feeling.

“They don't care that inflation is down compared to last year. They're worried about the fact that it's going to go higher and that it's still higher than what they remember pre-COVID,” Grein said. “So when you throw tariffs on top of that, I think it's really easy to understand why consumers are more pessimistic.”

Many are in a wait-and-see mode. Just ask Nora Murphy, our Airbnb host in Jersey City.

“Normally at this time, my October, November and December — those are our biggest times, those would be all booked by now. But I do not have a single booking for those right now,” she said.

Murphy is expecting this entire year to be slow.