Trump uncertainty slowing U.S. travel bookings - report

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Trump uncertainty slowing U.S. travel bookings - report

REUTERS

 

A boatload of tourists stand on a boat as it departs from Battery Park in New York August 27, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

 

BERLIN (Reuters) - Demand for travel to the United States over the coming months has flattened out following a positive start to the year, with uncertainty over a possible new travel order likely deterring visitors, travel analysis company ForwardKeys said on Monday.

 

ForwardKeys, which analyses 16 million flight reservations a day from major global reservation systems, also said that travel from the United States to and from the Middle East has been especially hard hit after President Donald Trump's move to ban people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

 

"Uncertainty reigns and the presidential rhetoric appears to be deterring visitors to the U.S.," ForwardKeys founder Olivier Jager said in a statement.

 

U.S. travel demand is set to be a topic at the world's largest travel fair, the ITB, in Berlin this week.

 

After the travel ban was imposed in January, international travel to the U.S. dropped by 6.5 percent in the following eight days, ForwardKeys data showed last month.

 

In its latest update on Monday, ForwardKeys said that bookings to the United States recovered after the courts halted the ban, but dropped again in the nine days after plans for a new ban were announced on Feb. 17.

 

Overall, bookings for arrivals to the United States over the next three months are 0.4 percent down on last year, whereas they had been 3.4 percent ahead the day before the travel restrictions were imposed.

 

The study also showed that accumulated U.S. bookings to the Middle East were up by 12 percent on last year in the three weeks before the ban. However, in the four weeks following the ban they were down 27 percent.

 

According to travel search site Kayak <PCLN.O>, searches from Europe for flights to the U.S. are down by 12 percent since the elections. However, Germans, some of the world's biggest spenders on travel, have not been deterred, with searches up 10 percent in that period, Kayak said in data provided to Reuters.

 

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Alexander Smith)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-03-06

[Emster23]

Uncertainty will become certainty soon enough regarding Trump's xenophobia, which is being echoed by some of his backers actions. Does he not realize that visiting US and tourism industry there is one sector that cannot be outsourced?

[Jingthing]

Any international good will towards the USA via American "soft power" (winning hearts and minds with our "goodness" and "coolness") is being crushed by the vile, vulgar white supremacist isolationist trumpist movement. A very dark time in American history. I well understand why fewer people would want to visit now. Duh. 

Edited March 6, 2017 by Jingthing

[charmonman]

It might become a new popular destination for Russian tourists, they'll soon be in charge of the place.

[spacebass]

It's working then !

[Jingthing]

5 minutes ago, charmonman said:

It might become a new popular destination for Russian tourists, they'll soon be in charge of the place.

trump basically said that Putin and the USA are moral equivalents ...

[dunroaming]

Speaking of travel bans, how is Trump's anti Muslim ban coming on?  He keeps promising it will come "next week" but next week never comes.  Still it's good to know Trump is on the case where the administration is running like a well oiled machine!

[Ken Khomdee]

Cry me a river......

 

[dunroaming]

2 hours ago, dunroaming said:

Speaking of travel bans, how is Trump's anti Muslim ban coming on?  He keeps promising it will come "next week" but next week never comes.  Still it's good to know Trump is on the case where the administration is running like a well oiled machine!

As you were! Trump is announcing the revised travel ban today!  Apparently Iraq has been removed from the list but what else has changed?

[Jingthing]

Cry me a river......
 

Will pass.

[Srikcir]

2 hours ago, dunroaming said:

Speaking of travel bans, how is Trump's anti Muslim ban coming on?  He keeps promising it will come "next week" but next week never comes.  Still it's good to know Trump is on the case where the administration is running like a well oiled machine!

Rumor is that Iraq will be taken off the list of banned countries. Iraqi's are fighting ISIL after all.

However, Immigration appears to be acting on its own accord of what Muslims enter the US. Recently, Immigration detained an Afghan (not one of the original banned Muslim countries) family of five with valid Special Immigrant visas at Los Angeles International Airport and has held them for several days. Case to be heard before a judge next week.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-afghan-idUSKBN16C0XD

[Scott]

6 hours ago, Srikcir said:

Rumor is that Iraq will be taken off the list of banned countries. Iraqi's are fighting ISIL after all.

However, Immigration appears to be acting on its own accord of what Muslims enter the US. Recently, Immigration detained an Afghan (not one of the original banned Muslim countries) family of five with valid Special Immigrant visas at Los Angeles International Airport and has held them for several days. Case to be heard before a judge next week.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-afghan-idUSKBN16C0XD

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