Travel agents say ban will impact business trips
dubai — The consensus among travel agents in Dubai following President Donald Trump’s sudden US travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, is that it is going to impact business travel here.
When Khaleej Times reached out to agencies across the city, all affirmed that they had not yet had to change or amend bookings for clients, but it was “to be expected”.
“We haven’t been directly impacted by this call from Trump as yet, but the bottom line is, business travel will be affected,” Priya Saxena, operations manager at Cozmo Travel (Business Bay) said.
“We have had many of our clients asking questions as they are concerned about how this will impact what used to be a straight-forward travel booking. Some of our clients already have travel schedules in place for when they arrive in the US (like conferences and forums) but now they may lose out on that expense, too.” Saxena said Cosmo Travel receives many inquiries regarding US travel options everyday as they mainly deal with “clientele booking business trips”, and each month they process about “100 bookings for US-bound flights”.
“We haven’t received any advisories from major airlines as yet but we are expecting them in the coming days. We have to be prepared for the knock-on effects as they are unavoidable following this halt on entry ruling.”
For marketing manager at Sun and Sky Travel in Bur Dubai, Romesh Fernando, there has not yet been “any hiccups” with his clients following the new advisory, but mainly because they deal with short-haul travel. “Majority of our clients travel to places like Sri Lanka, Georgia. We only process about three bookings a month for US-bound flights so I guess that’s why the impact has proven minimal for us thus far.”
However, he said they are prepared to advice on the next step if their clients have been impacted. “Every few weeks staff from airlines here come to us to sell seats, so I expect on their next visit they will be giving us more clarity on how to proceed with booking passengers that could be refused entry.”
Lakshmi Anand, Operations Manager at International Travel Services (ITS) in Dubai said currently, it doesn’t anticipate any US travel impacts.
“US travellers are very seldom for us and currently we do not have any clients booked for US sectors. We are a general sales agent which mainly offers fixed packages for non residents of India, and we only really promote US and other destinations during June, July, August and September.”
As such she said only time will tell come the summer months on how their clientele will be directly impacted. When asked if it had received advisories about the new visa requirements for passengers from the seven listed countries, Anand confirmed it had.