The strong dollar and an anti-foreigner political climate are taking a toll on inbound tourism to the U.S., new studies show. But the long-term impact of president Trump's proposed travel bans and other anti-immigrant policies remains unclear, with travelers from some countries indicating they are actually more inclined to visit America now, according to Brand USA.
The group, a public-private partnership created by Congress to promote America as a tourist destination, said last week that a monthly consumer survey it conducts in 11 countries showed a two percentage-point drop in the number of likely international leisure travelers who said they intend to visit the States this year.
That and two separate surveys of international travelers, however, reveal that many Asians are more likely to visit. In fact, the number of international Chinese travelers who said the current political climate will probably positively influence their likelihood of visiting the U.S. went up almost 20 percentage points from December to February, to 72%, the group said.
"There is a clear, net negative effect," Carroll Rheem, Brand USA's vice president for research and analytics, said of the current political climate. "But also, in some markets, there is a net positive effect. I think some of the coverage and information that has been put out there has been totally focused on just the negative. We obviously are wanting to measure the whole spectrum."
"There is a significant portion of travelers in the world who are encouraged to visit the U.S. because of the political climate," she said, pointing to surveys conducted between December and February that show some 70% of travelers from China and India said the political climate would make them more likely to visit the U.S., compared with less than 10% of travelers from those countries who said it would make them less likely to visit.
Not surprisingly, however, Mexico registered the largest drop — about 15 percentage points — in the number of likely travelers planning to visit the U.S. this year. President Trump has referred to Mexican immigrants as criminals and "bad hombres" and is moving forward on a campaign promise to build a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.
Canadians were also less likely to visit the U.S., although Brand USA blames the weakness of the Canadian dollar vs. the U.S. dollar for some of that. Travelers from Australia and Germany were also significantly less likely to visit, while sentiment against traveling to the U.S. was growing among residents of France and the U.K., according to Brand USA.
Rheem said her group's conclusions were based on an analysis of three separate studies, including travel surveys and the general monthly survey, which Brand USA officials said, is more a gauge of aspirations and consumer sentiment than of actual planned arrivals, as it shows visitor-intention rates that are much higher than actual arrivals.
Those surveys, of 1,000 people in each country, show that 80% of respondents indicated they were likely to travel internationally.
Of those, 25% said they intend to visit the U.S. this year, down from 27% a year ago.
Rheem said Brand USA first began trying to gauge the impact of politics on inbound traveler sentiment last summer when it noticed visitors were writing that in as a factor influencing their travel decisions.
The Brand USA analysis comes on the heels of a report from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), which said there are indications in flight-search data that sentiment toward the U.S. has suffered significantly in recent weeks, as a consequence of the Trump administration's two controversial attempts to impose a travel ban on visitors from first seven, now six predominantly Muslim countries.
Rheem, however, noted that traveler reaction follows the ebbs and flows of the news cycle, making it difficult to predict what the long-term impact of Trump's policies will be.
"Overall, I think it is just too premature to look at these first few months and be confident that the trends we see now are going to remain consistent," she said.
The data, Rheem said, was gathered as part of the group's ongoing efforts to measure consumer sentiment from 11 countries. Brand USA, however, does not evaluate any of the Muslim countries affected by Trump's proposed travel bans or last week's order barring carry-on electronics larger than a smartphone on nonstop flights from predominantly Muslim countries.
However, the WTTC, in its annual report on the global travel industry last week, predicted the growth of the travel and tourism sector in the U.S. would drop from the 2.8% increase recorded in 2016 to 2.3% this year.
The group also said the contribution of travel and tourism to the U.S.' GDP will predominantly be stimulated by strong outbound expenditures, which are expected to grow 5.4% in 2017.
"The U.S. is a beautiful and strong tourism destination," said David Scowsill, president and CEO of WTTC. "It currently ranks No. 1 in the world in terms of the sector's contribution to GDP, twice the size of the nearest competitor, China. For the U.S. to continue on this growth path, it is important to address the current forecasted drop in inbound travel and to reverse the negative perceptions created by the proposed travel ban."
Scowsill said 9.4% of American jobs depend on travel and tourism, and he urged the Trump administration to "continue to be open for business, which means no discrimination among those who want to visit the country for business and leisure purposes."
He also urged it to invest in marketing and infrastructure, including roads, airports, accommodations and attractions, and to maintain open skies, "as competition amongst airlines means more choice and better airfares for consumers."
Adam Sacks, founder and president of Tourism Economics, told the Destination Marketing Association International meeting last week in Nashville that he expects a downturn in international arrivals this year after eight years of increases, with cities like Miami, New York and San Francisco expected to take the biggest hits.
"We've seen this before," he said, noting that inbound travel fell for five years after 9/11, at a time when the economy was better than it has been during the current up cycle.
"This should give us concern for what's possible in terms of the losses we might see relative to what the economy might dictate."
Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson agreed that it is too early to assess the impact of Trump's policies, noting that February U.S. bookings from overseas markets rose 3% from a year earlier, though bookings from Mexico and from the Middle East were down 10% and 25%, respectively.
"The language around these issues and the sentiment is not a positive thing," Sorenson said at the company's annual meeting with security analysts and institutional investors in New York last week. "But we also think it's good to get good, hard data before we engage in a conversation about policy."
Sorenson said a potential ban has a larger impact on inbound leisure travel than on inbound business, and leisure travel tends to have a longer lead time in bookings.
"I would guess the summertime would be a particularly important time to make an assessment of the impact of policy," he said.
Johanna Jainchill and Danny King contributed to this report.