by Donald Wood
Last updated: 6:05 PM ET, Mon March 12, 2018
Officials at the ITB travel fair in Berlin this week announced the United States tourism industry has dropped over the last year.
According to Reuters.com, international arrivals to the U.S. dropped four percent in the first three quarters of 2017, as compared to the seven-percent growth of international tourism arrivals worldwide last year.
A German market research group revealed bookings from Germany to the U.S. are down 20 percent for the 2018 summer season, blaming the drop on adverse weather like hurricanes in the states, unfavorable foreign exchange rates and the reaction to President Donald Trump's decisions.
In addition, flight bookings to the U.S. dropped two percent in 2017 and were flat in the first two months of 2018, according to travel analysis company ForwardKeys. Many travel industry experts believe the issues are due to the U.S. not being viewed as a foreigner-friendly destination by many tourists.
"Politics is not helping us," German tour operator CANUSA owner Tilo Krause-Duenow told Reuters. "The potential for the U.S. could be much bigger. Prices have come down due to the currency weakening and we should have seen a much bigger increase in demand."
New York City is always a bright spot for American tourism. Officials initially predicted a decline in international visitors by 300,000 for 2017 but announced a lower decline of about 100,000 to an estimated 12.6 million.
Additional ForwardKeys data showed international forward bookings to the U.S. increased seven percent from the Americas, but only 0.5 percent from the rest of the world.
"People want to go where they get the most for their money, where they feel safe and there are exciting things to see," Delta Air Lines sales director Bob Hannah told Reuters. "And Trump's not going to stop that."
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