IMMIGRATION/PROTESTS/TRAVEL BAN: “During spring break, Canadian families used to pile the kids into a tour bus and head to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center and other attractions. It was the start of the busy season for Comfort Tour, a Toronto-based firm that usually brought between 200 and 300 tourists to New York in March.
This year, 11 people have signed up for the tours.
‘Even white, Anglo-Saxon people, who are most of our customers, they are afraid of crossing the border,’ lamented Al Qanun, manager and part-owner of the travel agency. ‘They don’t want to end up in some prison.’
The fallout from President Trump’s executive orders limiting travel from some Middle Eastern and African countries is having far-reaching implications for U.S. tourism
It is not just visitors from the countries targeted by the bans that are souring on U.S. travel; the seven countries included in Trump’s original order in January account for 0.1% of incoming travelers. Rather, an atmosphere of fear at the nation’s airports — and well-publicized incidents of visitors being detained and interrogated — are scaring off people without the slightest connection to the Muslim world.
‘Think twice about visiting America if you don’t want the *Mem Fox* treatment,’’ read a recent headline in the letters column of the Australian magazine Traveller, referring to the children’s book author who swore she would never return to the United States after being questioned at Los Angeles International Airport on her way to a literary conference.”
-Barbara Demick, “The Trump slump? Tourists say they’re scared to visit the United States,” The Los Angeles Times online, March 12, 2017