Trump’s trade war with China hits US tourism

20 Aug 2018  2056 | World Travel News

US president Donald Trump’s tit-for-tat trade war with China appears to have caused a significant slump in Chinese visitors to the US that could cost the American tourism sector dearly this year, according to ForwardKeys.

Weekly bookings from China to the US were up 2% from the last week of February (after the Chinese New Year holiday) to March 23 when the first tariffs took effect.

Since then, ForwardKeys data shows the year-on-year figure to August is down by 8.4%, falling further as new rounds of tariffs have been announced.

ForwardKeys said the negative impact on the Chinese currency, which has fallen 7.5% against the US dollar since tariffs were introduced – meaning tourists’ money buys less – and warnings from Beijing about US travel security risks, have likely further influenced the trend.

ForwardKeys’ data reveals that for the rest of the year, Chinese outbound bookings to the US are 9.6% behind where they were at the same time last year, whereas Chinese outbound bookings worldwide are ahead by 5.5%.

This pattern of growth worldwide but slowdown to the US is consistent in every month except October. A general setback in October is due to this year’s Mid-Autumn festival falling at the end of September, which draws departures at the start of the busy National Day Golden Week holiday into September from October.

The biggest impact has been on bookings for group travel (six or more passengers) from China to the US, currently behind for the rest of 2018 by 34.4% compared to last year.

FIT bookings are behind 3.9%, with leisure travel being worse affected than travel for business or travel to visit friends and relatives, ForwardKeys pointed out.

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