The tourism industry in the United States sees no adverse impact of Donald Trump taking over as the President.
“There’s no indicator that we have seen so far that there will be any impact. The Indian market continues to grow and it continued to grow during the first Trump administration,” Fred Dixon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Brand USA, a destination marketing organisation for the US, told businessline.
“Historically the market has continued to grow… and we’ve seen no impact on visa applications to the US. So, there’s nothing we’re seeing at the moment that would have any impact moving forward,” he said.
He was replying to a question on whether the taking over of the US Presidentiship by Trump, who was known for his caustic comments on immigration and jobs, would have an impact on inbound tourism.
Fred is leading a team of tourist services companies to explore opportunities to attract tourists from India.
“Last year, about 2.2 million Indians visited the US for leisure, for business, and for studies. This is 24 per cent more than the previous year. About two-thirds of them came there for leisure, about 20 per cent for business and 14 per cent for studies. We focus primarily on leisure and business travel,” he said.
“The Indian market has grown 49 per cent since 2019. So it has had the most dynamic growth of any country in the world in terms of visitation to the US,” he said.
As many as 72 million tourists visited the US last year, with India emerging as the fourth largest market.
Visa issues
Answering a question on the concern about issuance of visas, he said that visa processing in India has been at record levels the last two years.
“A million visas were processed last year which is a record. They’ve already said there will be an additional 250,000 interviews available for Indians this year. It’s been a real demand issue which is a good problem to have,” he said.
