♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Travel
at 3/01/2017 05:38:00 PM
Pre-Trump America used to welcome other people (like us coloreds); not anymore I guess. |
The travel research site ForwardKeys found a 6.5 percent drop in international flight searches to the United States after Trump signed the order, compared with the same eight-day stretch in 2016. “The data forces a compelling conclusion that Donald Trump’s travel ban immediately caused a significant drop in bookings . . . and an immediate impact on future travel,” said Olivier Jager, CEO of ForwardKeys. The British company monitors travel patterns by analyzing 16 million flight reservation transactions a day.The question is, how much will declines in online searches result in declines in actual travel to the US?
The percentages may not sound large, but specialists caution that a drop in the 77.5 million international tourists who come to the United States, spending $133 billion here, could have far-reaching consequences for the economy. According to US Travel, tourism directly supported more than 8.1 million US jobs in 2015.
“I’ll tell you quite honestly, when I saw these reports my reaction was, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” said Douglas Quinby of PhocusWright, a travel-market research company. “To see a decline in search and booking volume in the 6- to 8-percent range is a profound shift.”
Interest in travel to the US has “fallen off a cliff” since Donald Trump’s election, according to travel companies who have reported a significant drop in flight searches and bookings since his inauguration and controversial travel ban.Despite US stock markets reaching record highs on a daily basis now, many of the mainstays driving the US economy appear to be negatively affected by Trumpism: housing, retail, tourism, etc. To me at least, it's a stretch to believe that a con man is the economic savior of America.The signs are not looking good in any number of industries.
Data released this week by travel search engine Kayak reported a 58% decline in searches for flights to Tampa and Orlando from the UK, and a 52% decline in searches for Miami. Searches for San Diego were also down 43%, Las Vegas by 36% and Los Angeles 32%.
Though flight prices are holding firm (they usually take weeks rather than days to adjust to consumer trends), Kayak has identified a knock-on effect on average hotel prices. It found prices in Las Vegas are down by 39% and New York City by 32%.
It is the latest in a string of reports from the travel industry that suggests a “Trump slump”, with the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) estimating that since being elected President Trump has cost the US travel industry $185m in lost revenue.