Name: American tourists.
Age: They come in all ages – from college backpackers travelling around Europe, Asia and South America, to senior passengers on a Caribbean cruise.
Appearance: Typically – make that stereotypically, and by no means universally – loud and monolingual. Now possibly less welcome.
How so? You know the old thing about the problem with going anywhere is that you always take yourself?
So true! Now you could say you also take your president.
This is about Donald Trump? Everything is about Trump.
But I thought the story was about tourists not going to America. Because they would be interrogated by ICE (United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement), have their social media histories trawled through, in case they once – in a moment of naive youthful rebellion – admitted to believing in the climate crisis, and would then face immediate deportation. True, inbound travel to the US is expected to take a hit this year. Flight bookings from Canada are well down …
Hardly surprising … And bookings from Europe are also down. Britain and Germany have issued travel warnings to their citizens in the wake of some visitors’ horrific experiences.
But it’s also been reported that US tourists, too, are scaling back their overseas travel plans? Cirium, a company that analyses air travel, found that summer flight reservations from US cities to European destinations were down 12.6% compared with the same period last year.
Could that be because Trump has trashed his own economy as well as the world’s, and people are worried they won’t have any money? Sure to be a factor, economic uncertainty is cited by Virgin Atlantic as the reason it is seeing a slowdown in travel from the US to the UK. It could also be because of how American tourists are being, or think they will be, received.
Says who? The website Business Insider interviewed Americans about their experiences abroad. One couple on a ski trip to Canada had been given a hard time by a local woman. When they asked for advice on which run to take, they said: “She sent us down the most awful way, and we were like: ‘Do you think she did that on purpose?’”
Yeah, you hit us with tariffs, we’ll send you down the rubbish slopes! Business Insider also spoke to a woman from California who will be travelling to Germany but said: “I’m not bringing the usual pride that I have as an American.”
I see. Essentially, the worry for US tourists is that if they are not experiencing outright anti-American sentiment and even anger, then they are at least having to dodge awkward conversations about politics. Rick Steves, a travel blogger, has advice about whether Americans are still welcome in Europe.
Such as: “Maybe leave the red Make America Great Again (Maga) cap at home.” Steves says Americans are still welcome, “but be prepared for some interesting conversations”.
Do say: “Actually, we’re Canadian. Honest …”
Don’t say: “Usha, honey, I thought for our summer vacation this year we could go back to … Greenland.”
