Experts make bleak predictions for US tourism following Trump win
Travel and tourism experts have painted a bleak picture for US tourism in light of today’s election result.
Euromonitor published a paper this week outlining the impact of a victory on either side and said a Trump victory ‘represents the worse of the two scenarios’.
It says Trump’s America-centric platform, his threat to ban Muslims or residents of terrorism-afflicted countries, and to build a wall to separate the US and Mexico, will hit the travel and tourism industry.
It pointed to a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations, a US foreign policy think tank, which estimated a travel ban on Muslims to the US could cost up to $71 billion per year and up to 132,000 jobs.
The report also said Mexico tourism, which is the second largest source market for inbound travellers to the US behind only Canada, would also be hit.
The report said companies like Airbnb, which reports that 3 of its top 10 cities in Latin America by number of listings are in Mexico, and Expedia, which has invested heavily in recent years to mould its booking strategy to appeal not just to inbound US travellers to Mexico but also Mexican residents, would be among those negatively affected.
Meanwhile Trump’s ‘repeated verbal attacks and alleged physical assaults on women’ and Republican vice-president Mike Pence’s efforts to delegitimise homosexuality as governor of Indiana, would also hit both of these fast-growing markets, said the report.
As Trump made his victory speech today, his rhetoric had noticeably softened as he called for America to ‘come together as one united people’.
He added: "I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America’s interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone – all people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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