>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.