US International Tourism Market Share Is Falling Under Trump (buzzfeed.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The United States' slice of the international tourism pie is declining, according to a new report from Foursquare that looks at data from millions of phones worldwide. The US share of international tourism dropped 16% in March 2017 compared with the previous year. And it declined an average of 11% year over year in months spanning October 2016 to March 2017, according to the report. The drop coincides with the final month of the US election, the Trump transition, and the early months of the Trump administration, which notably imposed a travel ban on people from several majority-Muslim countries in January 2017 that was eventually halted in court but is currently under appeal. Declines in tourism market share from people originating in the Middle East were more pronounced than the rest of the world, down 25% this January, along with a smaller decrease from South America, Foursquare found. The data accounts for the percentage of international tourism coming to the US and not the absolute number of tourists, but Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck told BuzzFeed News that it's unlikely tourist visits to the US increased while share declined. "I don't think you'd see a 16% decline in international market share and absolute numbers being up. I don't think that's compatible," he said. "The volume of tourism doesn't change that fast."

Comments

Avoiding USA

[LQ]

I was speaking to someone from a tour company that organises special interest escorted tours all around the world. He said they have stopped running tours to the US because they've had so many bad experiences with border protection. If one person out of a group gets held for a couple of hours, they're not only traumatised but the whole tour gets off on a wrong foot.

Can't hang it on Trump

[mi]

if I have to disclose my social media accounts and phone or social media login details, I will spare you from the several thousand bucks

Trump had, literally, nothing to do with it. Here is a June 28th 2016 article about the searches, but our racist media gave Obama a pass until Trump got elected. And then, before the President-elect even entered office, there was an avalanche of articles about the "new" procedures — not directly blaming him, but planting the negative thoughts in the gullible heads (like yours and those of your adoring moderators here today). Only some of the reports mentioned the truth:

searches increased fivefold in the final fiscal year of the Obama presidency

So, no, it had nothing to do with Trump. More likely, the reason is the growth of dollar since last December — vacationing in the US simply became more expensive for foreigners, while going abroad became cheaper for Americans.