International visitors are already turning their back on Trump-era America

Hardly surprising given that international travel, especially for leisure is exceedingly sensitive to perception of the news. It takes a long time to build up tourist numbers, but a small incident can cause the sharpest falls immediately.

But I'd argue that even before the Trump administration, the USA was immensely difficult to travel to for anyone in a country that's not part of their visa waiver program. USA is one of the few places to require a transit visa even if you only connect at one of their airports and visa arrangements have exorbitant fees attached to them. They have a perception abroad of having stressful border control - even so for Canadians who arguably enjoy the easiest access to the US compared to any other country.

It certainly doesn't help to have higher minimum salaries for work visas and a possibility of being kicked out after completing a degree on study permits, which affect business and student visitors respectively. And finally, dealing with American companies from abroad can be a huge resource commitment as you often have to adopt American standards and clearances in parallel to other internationally adopted schemes or your own local one. But for a long time, the costs justified the prospects of visiting, simply because of the access you get to American markets. With Trump adopting "America first", a lot of people will just not bother deal with travelling to the USA anymore.

>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. 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%. The overall 17% decline, Hopper found, was much larger than the 1.8% drop that occurred between the same two periods a year ago, leading the company’s top data scientist to tell the Los Angeles Times that it is “hard to see any other short-term significant events that could be related,” other than Mr Trump’s assumption of the presidency and his travel ban.*

As far as fluff pieces go, this is one of the fluffiest. A mere 2 weeks after the decree, based on internet searches and no actual numbers, not controlled with anything (except last year's results), and with the bs hint at Trump as "russian led" -- whereas an explanation (assuming the numbers are correct" is much more obvious: that a President who is not openly cold-war hostile to Russia might bring in more interest for tourism from there.

Anecdotal of course, but I've travelled to the States multiple times per year in recent years, for work and especially for conferences. I'm planning to avoid the US entirely now since immigration there was already intrusive and unpleasant, and it's probably about to get significantly worse.

It's a shame, because most of the conferences I'm interested in are there or Europe, and Europe is very far from where I live. Unfortunately any measures that get pushed through now (e.g. requiring social media passwords) will probably take a very long time to get rolled back post-Trump, if they ever do.

When I grew up, I was influenced by media like Knight Rider, A-Team, MacGyver and other TV shows. Oh and documentaries about the Great Canyon and other beautiful areas. I loved (american) English. I always had a dream to visit the USA. Not to live the "american dream" and get rich but just to experience the culture and scenery. During the past 10 years though this desire has completely gone away. This is due to the political climate and disrespect for foreigners privacy. I never went there even though I could do so easily. I travelled all over Europe (easy, being a EU citizen) and now traveling a lot in Asia.

I know of several businesses that have chosen not to send their staff to the USA anymore to trade shows or clients. My company used to send someone to a media summit every year. Last time they declined the visa for that person without providing any reason. It makes no sense. The focus is shifting: the US used to be the biggest market that everyone strived to cater to. Not anymore. Banks are more and more reluctant to use USD, Euro is preferred. When I go to a bank anywhere in the world I suddenly have to fill out a questionaire about not being a US citizen, having no phone number there, never having lived there and on and on. I have nothing to do with the US so why are they bothering me with this crap? Imagine if every country requested such a thing, you'd sit there a week answering questions. Oh and banks in Asia are starting to not take on US customers at all from what I heard.

When even people like Adi Shamir (the S in RSA) are having issues obtaining visas (https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2013/10/shamir/), something must be completely wrong with the way immigration is handled.

I hope the USA can turn this ship around, right now it looks like it's heading directly for the iceberg with full throttle.

Well, yeah. I've never been a huge fan of the US but would have liked to visit it some day - several snowboarding destinations and Silicon Valley would be nice to see, at a minimum. However I have no desire to spend my tourism dollars encouraging a science denying, racist, regressive, aggressive and generally delusional administration. I hope things soon change for the better. In the meantime, there are plenty of good ski fields in Europe :)

I backpack since 1993 and always wanted to travel the world all my life (that includes the time that I raised 2 kids with my Japanese wife who never questions relocating to another country every 3 years because they realized how awesome an adventure life can be this way). Currently living in Eastern Europe which is the most awesome place these days (my kids speak 8 languages and us parents 5 as a result).

There is a lot of can-do here in Eastern EU compared to old-Europe. I had all sorts of jobs including diving instructor, then deep sea saturation diver and life support technician on offshore rigs in South East Asia. I made a boatload of money always doing what I loved and never listening to anyone else (especially not those who said it was better to lead a stable life in Austria). (I look back at these people today and can only feel sorry for them since they only know a life of fear (thanks to social and environmental conditioning that turned them into these sad characters they are).

If I look how the US treats their people with majority of the poor and black population incarcerated ... (and how they lock the middle class into their system with double taxation for those who dare to try their luck overseas) ... no thanks. The US is so badly broken that fixing it is not something that my generation will witness in it's lifetime.

I was supposed to relocate to Boston exactly now. But I changed my mind because I will not support this regime. My opinion is that if you are an American citizen currently not burning your flag in the street you are part of the problem. I would be totally the wrong person to uphold any of the fucking hypocritic values the US expects me to subscribe to when entering that country.

Also I threw the towel as engineering director in a Boston based Tech incubator for the same reason. I am not siding with racism/bigotry. The only way to have peace of mind is to ignore anything that comes out of the US as much as possible. I also make an active effort to watch what products I buy to ensure that as little money as possible goes from me to any US based business.

Despite working for an American company (in Czech Republic, so we don't need visa), I would consider refusing to go on a business trip to the U.S., especially since they apparently started to ask for phone and social media passwords.

I also wanted to come in the U.S. again at least once or twice for tourism (once with my family to visit my old coworkers at the east coast, once with my coworkers to visit the national parks in the west), but I am also considering that, short-term.

To be honest I had already cut out the US from my travels since the Patriot Act and all that frisking

Meh, i didn't feel much need to travel there while Bush Jr was running the circus, and 8 years of "hope and change" didn't change my stance on that.

The only thing that will is the dismantling of this "security circus" called TSA.

I'd like to see New Orleans, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle, but staying out of the country until there is a more sane government. My partner saw his family in US the last time on Christmas and is also not going back until things get better. All my friends and family has been talking the same, so I guess the article might be right.

i am not going to visit country where they wanna see content of my phone or laptop despite not being charged with any crime

one more reason to not visit amazing country where during transfer to third country through US airport you must pass through immigration

Personally when I book an holiday I do that well in advance (4 to 6 months) trying to get a good deal. Most of the time cancel an holiday is expensive. Back in October I was looking for a ski holiday and looked at Denver, what put me off was not the possibility of Trump or Clinton be the president but the dollar vs pound. I do believe that one main reason for the decline in this period was the strong dollar appreciation against other currencies back in Nov/Dec. For many holidays travellers, economic reasons count more then political reasons when choosing the holiday destination.

Said that I'm going next week to Chicago.

I was planning a road trip including an intersection with the solar eclipse this summer with my gf, but we've put it off in large part because of Trump. Anecdotal but whatever.

I used to travel from France /Germany to the US for business about 10 times a year, and twice for holidays. It never was a pleasant experience at the border. Horrible in Chicago, barely tolerable in Phoenix. All of the people I discuss this with have the same opinion, so there is I believe a core problem with how people are welcomed to the US. I was one asked at the border why I will be staying for two days only (with an aggressive tone), to which I answered that I feel so welcome here that if I could squeeze everything in a few hours I would leave even earlier, not spending my money on local businesses. This cost me an extra hour at the airport but boy, it was worth it. No more Us travel for me before this "you are the enemy and we do not want you in the US" mentality changes.

> [...] 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%.

I would have expected such a drop already after the NSA's various mass surveillance programs became public knowledge.

There's no way I'd visit the USA these days

Me? Since 2001