“The biggest complaint we hear from visitors is we can’t get our pictures without fences,” said Canden Arciniega, a D.C. tour guide of nearly 20 years.

Arciniega is one of several local guides who spilled on the devastating impact that the work on D.C. landmarks — which has included the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, portions of the National Mall, the Kennedy Center and the $400 million White House ballroom project — is having on tours this year.

Rauf Shakir, a D.C. resident of 26 years and co-owner of USA Guided Tours, revealed that the number of annual visitors that his company gets on its tours (around 80,000-90,000 a year) has cratered, adding that revenue has dropped around 65-75% from two years ago.

He said closures and reduced access to iconic sites is, in part, to blame along with an uptick in international travelers being turned off by traveling to the States as a result of Trump’s immigration crackdown and his National Guard deployments.

“It has been hands down our worst year,” he said of the company.

A visitor stands on a temporary fencing weight to take a photo of the recently drained Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool back in August.

Kevin Carter via Getty Images

The renovation work has produced a bit of an unwanted maze for guides navigating their usual routes with tourists on the National Mall.

One Iowa tourist told D.C.’s WTOP in July that the area around the reflecting pool — which is surrounded by temporary fencing with black tarp on it — made them feel as though they were in a “construction zone.”

“People just aren’t coming,” said E. David Luria, a D.C. photographer who takes visitors around landmarks in the nation’s capital for snaps via his Washington Photo Safari tours, in an interview with the Post.

Luria said tour bookings are down 50% from 2025.

“They just don’t want to put up with it,” he said.

A White House spokesperson told the Post that it’s a “completely false narrative” to suggest that the work in and around the Mall has been a hit on the tour industry.

“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,” Lauren Bis wrote in an email.