When asked by an online survey:
“Do you think Trump’s travel ban will impact visitor numbers to the US?”, 83% of the 77 respondents agreed they thought it would. One labelled the ban as a “crazy way of running a country”.
Another anonymous respondent said they “would personally persuade clients not to travel to the US” in the wake of the ban, and a further participant said the decision to prevent travellers from seven mainly-Muslim countries arriving in the US, would “make people feel uncomfortable”.
On February 3, US District Judge James Robart suspended Trump’s ban (after an Executive Order was signed on January 27), opening a window for people with visas from the seven affected countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) to enter the country.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was due to hear arguments over whether to restore the ban from Justice Department lawyers and opposing attorneys after TTG went to press this week.
Elsewhere, last week the World Tourism Organization’s secretary-general, Taleb Rifai, warned that the “discriminatory” ban risked “dumping travel demand” to the country.
However, the move didn’t seem to be putting off Brits just yet – in booking data recorded from January 1-31, Travel Counsellors earmarked the US as its “number one” destination during a record peak booking period.
