Whether or not presidential election years have any effect on consumers’ travel decisions, the U.S. Travel Association argued that one thing the industry should agree on was that the 2016 election will ultimately influence travel-related policies.
“There is a trend, that sense out there, that a more nationalist or nativist tendency is in vogue,” Jonathan Grella, the executive vice president of public affairs for U.S. Travel, said of the current presidential election cycle. “If we make the barriers to entry into our country too great we could send negative signals to travelers. That’s … a challenge for us.”
U.S. Travel is the official advocate for the country’s inbound tourism industry, so it has a different focus than travel companies that cater to outbound travelers. Nevertheless, the organization notes that regardless of what segment of the travel industry companies serve, they should be watching the elections closely.
And they are, according to industry insiders. That is because there’s so much at stake in a presidential election year, with everything from the candidates’ economic policies to tax positions that could affect small businesses to international travel procedures such as the Visa Waiver Program hanging in the balance.
“As an industry, we are still very heavily small-business influenced, much more so than other [industries],” said Scott Koepf, the senior vice president of sales at Avoya Travel. For Koepf, some of the observations about the presidential election revolve around “what is the [next] administration going to be doing to the small-business world. Is there going to be more opportunity or less opportunity?”
For U.S. Travel, the goal is to get in front of the candidates and let them know what the industry brings to the larger economic table and what issues it finds important.
“One issue that we have been particularly focused on is the level of consciousness or awareness that the [government] leadership has of our issues,” Grella said.
“We frequently encounter challenges when there are crises, whether of a health, security or budgetary nature, and [we are] trying to ensure that leaders don’t implement policies that damage the travel industry,” Grella said.
As an example, he pointed to developments such as the Ebola virus and the recent rise in security concerns as situations to which lawmakers often respond with policy pitches that could negatively affect the travel industry.
“If we can get lawmakers to a place where they think of travel earlier before they implement policies, then we’ll be much better off,” Grella said. “But too often we’re in a place where we have to ask them to put on the brakes."
Regardless of which side of the aisle candidates are on, U.S. Travel strives to remain nonpartisan, reaching out to all the presidential campaigns to try and give travel a louder voice in a very noisy election cycle. Grella said the travel industry’s biggest advantage can also be a disadvantage at times.
“Part of the reason the industry is well-regarded is because it is not partisan,” he said. “That helps in a lot of ways.”
However, he also admitted that political neutrality comes at a price.
“Obviously, it’s a totally different dynamic altogether than, say, the oil industry or even the airlines,” he said.