His words were to prove prophetic. On Friday, the US inaugurated its new president, and while you may have mixed views about him, (or you might be downright terrified, as I am as an LGBT woman), the election of Donald Trump was the product of democracy – with all its messiness and noisiness and complications.
It would be remiss not to mention last week’s historic event in this, our special US-themed issue. But if Friday showed us anything, it was that for all his bluster and ego, Donald Trump is just one man. And what Saturday showed us – with the millions of inspirational women and men who took to the streets across the US for the Women’s March – is that America is so much greater than that.
Nor does the industry expect Trump to deter British travellers, with agents, operators and destination marketeers agreeing at TTG’s Industry Leader’s Forum in late November that flight capacity and sales to the US will only grow in 2017.
Exchange rates might represent a greater challenge, though as we suggest in our US feature, even a weak pound needn’t deter tourists from enjoying the culture of Boston, or Stateside shopping trips, this year.
Brand USA is certainly optimistic about the year ahead, and will host more agents than ever before on the Brand USA MegaFam in May, when it will showcase new states and even wider diversity than previously. It is perhaps fitting that this year’s MegaFam finale will take place in Obama’s adopted hometown of Chicago. Because amid the angry rhetoric of last year’s election campaigning, it was a speech by Obama in July that rang truest of all. America doesn’t need to be “made great again”, he gently pointed out. It already is.
