President Donald Trump’s travel ban may be on a court-imposed hold, but the executive order already has affected international travel to and from the U.S. — far more broadly than prescribed.
From business trips to vacation plans, international demand has fallen in the wake of the Jan. 27 order, according to studies, presaging potential turbulence ahead for the U.S. travel and tourism industry as the Trump administration ponders its next move.
A report by travel company Hopper found weekly international search demand for flights to the U.S. was down 17 percent after the travel ban compared with the week before Trump’s inauguration.
“This is one of the first times that we’ve seen a sustained decline in search from people outside the U.S. trying to come into the U.S.,” said Patrick Surry, chief data scientist at Montreal-based Hopper, which analyzes global booking data to predict airfares.
The Hopper study found a broad decline in flight searches, a leading indicator for bookings, with demand falling in 94 out of 122 countries of origin. Search demand from the seven predominantly Muslim countries included in the travel ban — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — was down 33 percent, but China, Ireland, Denmark and New Zealand all saw comparable declines.
At the other end of the spectrum, flight searches from Russia to the U.S. have skyrocketed, up 88 percent under Trump’s travel ban.
“There were a few places where search traffic was up, and Russia was definitely the biggest,” Surry said.
The executive order, which the White House said was intended to protect the U.S. from foreign terrorists, temporarily barred entry for people from the seven Muslim-majority countries. It also suspended resettlement in the U.S. of refugees from around the world.
A federal judge in Seattle blocked the immigration order Feb. 3, a decision unanimously upheld by a federal appeals court Feb. 9. Trump said Thursday that next week he will announce “a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people.”
Business travel declined 3.4 percent in the week after the travel ban was rolled out, resulting in $185 million in lost bookings, according to the Global Business Travel Association, an international trade group based in Washington, D.C.
The real costs could be much higher, said Michael McCormick, the group’s executive director and chief operating officer.
“We clearly see the impact, and it hurts,” McCormick said. “There’s a direct link between business travel expenditure and economic growth.”
The association’s study is based on bookings done by companies in the U.S. but reflects travel in both directions. The group is collecting data from European companies on travel to the U.S., McCormick said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw ultimately a similar or worse impact on travel coming into the United States,” he said.
Michael Fassnacht, CEO and president of FCB Chicago, said international business travel continues unabated for the advertising agency but with added support, including a new 24/7 legal hotline for employees abroad.
“Because there is some nervousness for some of our employees who are immigrants and on H-1B visas, we are trying everything to provide support and assistance to them,” Fassnacht said. “We want to help our employees feel good and safe about traveling — for leisure or for business.”
Fassnacht, a native of Germany, holds a green card and is in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. He is traveling to South Africa next week on business, and his mom just came to visit from Germany.
“It’s more important than ever before (to travel internationally) to show that nothing has changed,” Fassnacht said.
In Chicago, where tourism is on the rise but overseas travel lags other major U.S. destinations, the impact of the ban may be more muted.
Chicago is coming off a record year for tourism, with 54.1 million visitors in 2016, according to Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism arm. But international tourism was down 3.7 percent to 1.56 million visitors, with the biggest declines from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Brazil.
“We don’t really have any idea of how this ban would potentially impact travel plans,” said Al Orendorff, a spokesman for Choose Chicago. “We can’t speculate on what the future will hold.”
Peter Carideo, owner of CRC Travel in Lincoln Park, said the travel ban comes up “in almost every conversation” with clients, with many opting for domestic rather international destinations.
“We’re doing a lot of Hawaii, a lot of Southern California, a lot of Arizona, whereas people at spring break and the beginning of the summer would be thinking Europe or other places,” Carideo said.
He said one client who has lived in the U.S. for 50 years but was born in Iran recently decided against a family vacation to Costa Rica over concerns that Carideo could not assuage.
“We don’t say, ‘It’s safe; you’ll be fine,’ because I’m not taking responsibility if I didn’t know where they were born, whether they’re legal or not,” Carideo said. “People have to do their due diligence.”
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @RobertChannick
