Trump: Killing tourism

WHEN President Donald Trump announced his travel ban last month, affecting people from seven majority-Muslim countries, this blog wondered what effect it would have on tourism and business travel to America. “The direct impact to tourism of a travel ban from these countries will be small,” a fellow Gulliver noted, since “each sends a piddling number of visitors to America.” But there was a bigger concern: “Will the decree—easily interpreted as a deep hostility to the world beyond America’s shores—put off global travellers?”

Two weeks later, it has become clear that the answer is yes.

I’m with the bannedInternational visitors are already turning their back on Trump-era America

The impact of the travel ban has been swift

Read more: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2017/02/i-m-banned

Last week, the travel ban was blocked temporarily by a federal judge and the suspension upheld by a panel of appeals court judges. But that hasn’t stopped Mr Trump’s executive order from having an effect on travel to the United States.

Hopper, a market research firm, looked at online searches for flights into America, comparing the final weeks of the Obama administration with the first weeks of Mr Trump’s presidency. It found that these searches had declined by 17%. The overwhelming majority of countries studied showed a drop in interest. The most notable exception was Russia, which has been accused of meddling in November’s presidential election in Mr Trump’s favour and colluding with members of his team. Searches for flights to America from Russia increased by 88%.