Trade war affects U.S. tourism, slump in Chinese visitors by 42 percent for National Day holidays

Saturday, September 29, 2018

According to travel fare search engine Skyscanner there was a dramatic decrease of 42 percent in flight bookings from China to the U.S in next week’s holiday called ‘golden week’ as compared to the same period last year.

There was a 16.7 percent drop in flight bookings from China to the U.S. in the first three quarters of 2018.

This is due to the escalating US-China trade war and the travel advice issued by the Chinese embassy in the summer travel due to dangers in the U.S.

As per the U.S. government data however the Chinese visitors to the US are a small group overall but they have a huge spending power and brings  US$34.8 billion in 2016 in retail, accommodation, travel and educational spending.

ForwardKeys, a European travel research agency mentioned that a decreases in flight bookings from China to the US appear to mirror the heightening trade tensions since April.

This year the number of tourists from China to the U.S. has gone down by almost 5 percent as compared to last year.  There was a surge in weekly bookings in February and March but it started to decline in April after Donald Trump asked the officials to draw up a list of tariffs on US$100 billion worth of imports from China.

David Tarsh, ForwardKeys spokesman predicted harm to the US economy caused by a downturn in Chinese tourism which could reach half a billion dollars.

Jonathan Grella, spokesman at the US Travel Association, a Washington-based non-profit representing and advocating for the travel industry said  that the US runs a US$28 billion travel and tourism trade surplus with China.

The economic dynamic might get upset due to the travel trade tensions as the US$28 billion was calculated by the travel association through consumer spending data.

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