U.S. Travel Coalition Enlists Restaurants and Retailers to Reverse Trump’s Isolationist Stance
Photo Credit: The travel industry hopes a new coalition will help it break through to President Trump. Pictured are tourists walking the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on November 10, 2006. Flickr / Bill Holmes
Skift Take
If the travel industry's lobbying and trade associations have any more tricks up their sleeves, they'll need them if they will have any chance of reversing what is essentially the Trump Administration's anti-visitor stance.
Invoking the safety in numbers theory, the U.S. Travel Association officially launched its Visit U.S. Coalition on Tuesday with a plea to the Trump Administration to work with the U.S. travel industry to advance its agenda.
The coalition, which initially includes nine members, including the American Gaming Association, the National Restaurant Association, and the National Retail Federation, is a Washington, D.C.-based group aimed at working with the White House and Congress to balance the anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner rhetoric coming from President Donald Trump with a welcoming message for international travelers.
Many U.S. travel brands had feared that the travel ban and other controversial remarks by the president would lead to a decline in international visitors. Some of the United States' most important visitor markets, such as Mexico, the UK, Brazil, and China, all had drop-offs in arrivals at least through July 2017, the most recent month that international arrivals data
