Trump Tower, in midtown Manhattan, has become a modern-day Mount Vernon. Tourists have long visited President George Washington’s homestead. Now they venture through Trump Tower’s brass doors to ogle the décor—“it’s so gold,” said a German teenager standing near the lobby’s waterfall on a recent afternoon—or to buy souvenirs.
The Choi family, visiting from South Korea, wandered the marble expanse wearing their new “Make America Great Again” hats, three for $50.
The question for America’s hoteliers and airlines is whether such visitors are anomalies. A strong dollar is one reason for foreigners to avoid visiting America. President Donald Trump may prove another, according to a growing collection of data.
Measuring the precise impact of Trump’s presidency on travel is difficult, however. In addition to the currency effect, many current trips to America were booked before his election. Marriott, a big hotel company, reported an overall increase, compared with a year earlier, in foreign bookings in America in February.
However, Marriott C.E.O. Arne Sorenson has voiced concern about a potential slump in tourism. In February Forward Keys, a travel-data company, reported that in the week after Trump first tried to ban travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, international bookings dropped by 6.5% against the same period in 2016. Hopper, a travel app, found that average daily searches for flights to America have declined in 99 countries since Trump tried to issue his travel ban, compared with the last weeks of President Barack Obama’s term. Russia is one of the few places where demand has risen. Tourism Economics, a forecaster, expects 2 million fewer foreign visits to America this year, a 1% drop from 2016. Without Trump it had expected a 3% jump.
Some sort of fall-off would be unsurprising. On March 6 Trump issued a new, revised travel ban affecting six Muslim-majority countries. The measure is mired in litigation, but that does not give visitors from the affected countries much comfort.
On March 17 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave broad instructions for consular officials to identify “populations warranting increased scrutiny” and adjust visa-processing accordingly. Such vetting would cover a much broader swathe of the globe than the ban.
Then officials barred on-board laptops for travelers from some airports in the Middle East and northern Africa. Britain issued a similar prohibition.
The laptop ban has simply prompted some business travelers who work in the Middle East to book flights with a layover in Europe so that they can use laptops onboard, said Greeley Koch of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives.
However, closer scrutiny of visa applications probably will lead to delays and fewer visas. Tourists who oppose Trump’s policies may choose to go elsewhere. This week Emirates, an airline based in Dubai, said that it would reduce flights to five American cities as of May, owing to lower demand.
The industry has been here before. International tourism in America slumped by around 3% each year from 2000 to 2006. Most analysts blame not only the terrorist attacks of 2001, but also stricter visa rules and anti-American sentiment abroad. Countries that had the dimmest view of America, according to surveys during that period, tended to see drops in travelers there, according to Adam Sacks of Tourism Economics.
“We are facing a potential rerun,” Sacks said.
© 2017 Economist Newspaper Ltd., London (April 22). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Image credits: Todd Heisler/The New York Times, Damon Winter/The New York Times