A FOOLISH TAKE

More visitors say ‘no thanks’ to U.S.

There is a trend happening that is impacting the American tourism industry: Overseas visits to the U.S. are in decline.

If this continues, it doesn’t bode well for companies in the space.

Data on overseas visits is collected by the National Travel and Tourism Office. The data shows the year-over-year change in overseas visits to the United States each month since the beginning of 2000.

The pattern emerging mirrors world events.

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, tourism fell precipitously. The same happened after the financial crisis, though to a smaller degree. And the same seems to be hap- pening now amid uncertainty and natural disasters.

In early 2016, the year-overyear change in overseas visits to the United States began a sustained decline, topping out at a 11% drop in March of this year.

Since April 2016, overseas visits have fallen on a year-over-year basis in 11 out of 12 months.

Corroborating this, software company Adobe said this year that online searches by prospective travelers to the U.S. dropped 6% in the first quarter of the year.

Additionally, Oxford Economics, an advisory and analytics company, predicted this year that travel to the U.S. could fall by as much as 8% in the wake of Trump administration policies such as the travel bans and immigration crackdowns.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s laptop ban on international flights also had an effect.