I wonder how trump’s plan to round up foreign nationals will affect travel to the US. Will our neighbors be calling the military everyone we have a guest staying with us? I under if we’ll see a decrease in bookings over the next 4 years.
Was planning a trip from Australia…. Not anymore… maybe in 4 years.
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I have no interest in travelling to a country where half the people I engage with (on average) think Trump is okay.
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What happened the last time Trump was president? Everyone panicked, but in the end nothing changed.
Really, 99% of the world does not care who is the American president, whether it’s clown a or clown b, tourists will still visit.
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That is not going to be the what happens this time. There were guard rails in place in the past election and people in his cabinet that said NO to him. . Read Project 2025. Plus the Supreme courts gave him immunity. If we are very lucky, we might have another mid-term election in 2 years and we might be able to take congress to put a stop to some but not all of his ideas.
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Nothing changed? Yeah, a lot changed. Racists, misogynists and other bigots felt emboldened to spew their hatred on online platforms, neo-Nazis felt emboldened to march in the streets in full regalia, Asians got randomly attacked on the street due to Trump’s insistence on calling it the “China virus”. There was a Muslim ban, remember that? They separated immigrant children, many only toddlers, from their parents and locked them in cages, remember that?
And last time there were actually some sane adults in the room with Trump, who managed to talk him down from some of his more insane and dangerous ideas. This time his staff, his cabinet, and anyone else around him are guaranteed Trump bootlickers, far more dangerous and evil, with nefarious agendas of their own.
And the stacked Supreme Court had not yet declared the POTUS immune from prosecution for “official acts”, nor struck down Roe vs. Wade.
And while a large part of the world’s population is too busy just trying to survive to pay attention to world politics, the kind of people who have $ to go travelling as tourists are generally much more informed and far more than 99% of the world does care who is the President. Like all the Ukrainians and Palestinians and Israelis, to name a few.
You couldn’t pay me to enter the US as long as the MAGAs are in charge.
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I can assure you that considerably more than 1% of the people who live in the country where I live do not view it as “equivalent clowns,” do care quite a bit, and view what’s coming in the USA as quite differently than what has happened in the past… and I live in the country that is the #1 source of tourists to America.
All of our recent Airbnb guests have been from Asia and Europe, and we actually asked them about this. Their view is that America has “gone crazy” and they have a newfound wariness of visiting the United States.
Americans are (in)famous the world over for being oblivious about political events in other countries, but the same is not true in reverse – people in other countries are fully aware of Mr. Trump’s promises to use the American military to rout “illegals” from home and workplace (presumably including hotels and resorts), and are wary of the chaos that might ensue.
People living in peaceful democracies (Japan, Europe, Canada, Australia) get nervous at the prospect of being a non-citizen visitor in a country where there are plans for the military to do massive round-ups of non-citizens. Tourists have other vacation choices-- choices where turmoil isn’t on the menu of recent election promises
People in countries prosperous enough to be a significant source of tourists DO CARE who is President of the USA (although I believe Mr. Trump IS very popular in Russia, which provided all of fifty thousand of America’s 70 million visitors in 2023).
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I’m 2 years away from retirement. I have no idea if there will be medicare, social security, or any safety net.
I think there’s going to be a rude awakening for MAGAs when they start seeing their “socialist” benefits disappear, experience massive inflation with tariffs and removing the immigrants that harvest our farmlands.
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I have heard interviews with European high school students who are far more informed about history and current world events than the average adult American, 54% of whom have literacy levels at or below that of 6th grade elementary students. The US is 135th down the list of the world’s countries’ literacy rates.
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Go back to the topics about Trump and Tourism to the US end of 2016. The same sentiment and same worries, but did it impact tourism? Nope, people still visited the US.
Until Covid happened.
If anything will have an impact on Worldwide tourism, it will be the collapse of the German automotive industry that is currently happening and slowly dragging the German and Europeans economy down in its fall.
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What I’m hearing on the ground in Canada is not the same in kind and in degree what I was hearing eight years ago. In 2016 people were expecting a clown show, now they are expecting malicious chaos, disruptions, instability, shortages, and violence. This is apples and oranges.
With all due respect, Chris, I don’t think you really have an accurate reading of what is happening outside the USA. For example, in your initial post, you claimed that 99% of foreigners viewed various American politicians as indistinguishable, interchangeable “clowns.” The international Pew research shared above shows that this a totally inaccurate take on how outsiders view the current situation within the United States.
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The first time the future criminal was elected I knew nothing about him but was in disbelief he was elected.
This time I was totally depressed. It’s the beginning of a horror show where sane people will have little control since the Repubs control the house and senate.
I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to visit the US. We are a complete embarrassment to the world. The criminal and all his billionaire cronies are going to try to make this country unrecognizable. They hate poor people, immigrants and women in control. If I was a little younger and had more money I’d head out of the country.
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Trump wasn’t sworn in until 2017. Do you have data for 2017/ 18 / 19?
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My bad. It actually increased slightly from 2016-2017. Increased a bit in 2018, decreased in 2019, then plummeted in 2020 during Covid restrictions.
2016 76.41 million
2017 77.19
2018 79.75
2019 79.44
2020 19.21
2021 22.28
2022 50.87
2023 66.50
The meat packing industry and construction trades also rely heavily on immigrant labor. Landscapers, gardeners, nannies and house and hotel cleaners are also rely on a lot of immigrant labor.
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The day I found out the orange turd won the election, I walked around like a zombie. I thought just like you did, if I were younger and worked from home, I too would consider leaving. My only comfort is the hope that these four years will go by quickly. Hang in there!
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That proves my point.
What ever sentiments people have about the election of Trump. This will not scare any tourists away.
People still want to visit National Parks, do Route66, visit NY, visit LA etc etc they will not change their mind because a different muppet in the White House.
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Yep, I remember them highlighting these workers during the pandemic and how they were forced to work. I’m so disapointed with 50 percent of my fellow Americans
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It doesn’t prove any point, because as many here have pointed out, the disgust and fear of what this administration plans to do and the lack of any sane, ethical people in the administration to mitigate anything is not at all like the first Trump election.
At that point, he was largely an unknown as far as how he would govern. And all his financial and sexual crimes hadn’t yet publicly come to light. This time around we know exactly the cruelty and chaos that is the plan and see the people being put in place to carry it out.
So it remains to be seen how it all affects tourism, but you certainly can’t predict it from a couple of percentage points of tourism increase in 2017 and 2018.
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