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More bad news for the country's tourism industry
Apr 5th 2017
by B.R.
THE effect that Donald Trump is having on American tourism seems clear. Data
from online travel agents, which analyse customers searches and are thus privy
to the most timely information on travel trends, are unanimous in the bleakness
of their assessments. Expedia, Cheapflights and Kayak are just some of the
sites reporting that interest in travelling to the United States has fallen
since Mr Trump s inauguration and his attempted travel bans and drawbridge-up
rhetoric. (The strong dollar hasn't helped.) Economic forecasters are
pessimistic, too. Oxford Economics, for example, reckons that as many as 6.7m
fewer tourists will visit America this year; a fall of 8% compared to last
year.
Those working in the American tourism industry are desperate to see the
drip-drip of negative news stories come to an end. They will have been
dismayed, therefore, by a Wall Street Journal article published on April 4th.
According to the paper, the Trump administration is considering introducing
even harsher security checks on foreign tourists, either when they enter the
country or when they apply for a visa. The new proposals, called extreme
vetting , include a right to access visitors mobile phones. A Department of
Homeland Security official told the Journal that the goal is to "figure out who
you are communicating with . Contacts will come under particular scrutiny,
although the implication is that other functions photos, maybe, or messaging
apps could also be of interest.
Such a measure would be both ludicrously easy to circumvent for criminals and
disproportionately stressful for the average traveller. Many of us are weirdly
protective about our smartphones; we consult them so often they feel like
confidantes. The idea of a stranger nosing his way around them feels like a
violation. Meanwhile, the policy would have little effect on the dangerous
people it is supposed to target. Ne er-do-wells would simply stop bringing
incriminating phones into the country (if, indeed, that is what they currently
do). It is presumably not beyond the wit of a foreign terrorist to log onto
Craigslist once he has entered the United States and pick up a cheap unlocked
Samsung.
Other measures under consideration include demanding access to travellers
financial records and social-media passwords. Unlike some of Mr Trump s other
self-inflicted travel wounds, such extreme vetting might at least be
indiscriminate. According to the WSJ s source, it will not only affect people
from the Muslim countries that the president distrusts. Nationals from America
s allies such as Britain, Germany and Australia could also be subject to
checks. As residents of these countries can travel to the United States without
a visa, any phone-rummaging would presumably have to be done on arrival, rather
than on applying for permission to travel.
Even if few travellers end up having their phones examined, such signals from
the Trump administration whether travel bans from Muslim countries, laptop
restrictions on planes, overly intrusive security screening or building walls
suggest a country that would rather tourists stayed away. Even if this is not
the intention, it may well end up being the result.