No ‘Trump slump’ seen in travel
Spending, arrivals in U.S. increase, including in Vegas
NEW YORK — Last winter, the U.S. tourism industry fretted that Trump administration policies might lead to a “Trump slump” in travel.
But those fears may have been premature. International arrivals and travel-related spending are up in 2017 compared with the same period in 2016. There might even be a “Trump bump,” says Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, a nonprofit representing the travel industry.
A few months ago, Dow and others warned that President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and ban on travel from a handful of mostly Muslim countries could send an anti-tourism message.
But “impending doom hasn’t manifested itself,” Dow said in an interview. “Right now we cannot identify a loss. It’s contrary to everything we’ve heard, but travel is in slightly better shape than it was a year ago. Everyone wants me to tell the story of the sky is falling, but for the travel industry, the sky is not falling.”
Latest numbers from the U.S. Travel Association’s Travel Trends Index showed 6.6 percent growth in international travel to the U.S. in April and 5 percent growth in May compared with the same months last year. The Travel Trends Index uses hotel, airline and U.S. government data.
Individual sectors have good news, too.
Hotel occupancy for the first five months of 2017 was “higher than it has ever been before,” said Jan Freitag, senior vice president with STR, which tracks hotel industry data. American Express Meetings & Events has “not seen a slowdown in either domestic U.S. meetings or international meetings from the U.S. in the past six months,” according to senior vice president Issa Jouaneh.
Some bump in Las Vegas
Las Vegas has seen a moderate bump in international travel on nonstop flights to and from Mccarran International Airport in the first five months of 2017, thanks mostly to increased traffic on Air Canada, Korean Air, discount carriers Edelweiss and Thomas Cook and new-to-las Vegas operator Hainan Airlines.
Overall, international traffic for the first five months of 2017 is up
1.2 percent over a year earlier at
1.4 million passengers.
There currently are no nonstop flights to and from any of the nations identified on Trump’s travel ban list.
Earlier this month, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority received a report from airline development officials outlining how they intend to increase international travel.
“We have a robust program with Mccarran International Airport to attract new air service both domestically and internationally and we’ve been successful in bringing more seats to Las Vegas this year, including from international destinations,” Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority spokesman Jeremy Handel said in an emailed statement.
Review-journal writer Richard N. Velotta contributed to this report.