Travel chiefs say Donald Trump no reason to avoid US but American holidays could get more expensive

Travel industry leaders are holding their breath as Donald Trump returns to the White House, fearing any destabilisation of international relations could rattle the ongoing travel recovery.

Travel industry leaders are holding their breath as Donald Trump returns to the White House, fearing any destabilisation of international relations could rattle the ongoing travel recovery.

Since borders reopened after the Covid crisis, Australians have been slow to return to the US despite plenty of airline capacity, with the country no longer in our top three overseas travel destinations.

In August, Bureau of Statistics data showed Japan had pushed the US into fourth place with Indonesia and New Zealand maintaining first and second.

Heading in the other direction, Americans are now Australia’s fifth largest source of overseas visitors, down from fourth, even with the greenback’s stronger buying power.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner said he expected the return of Mr Trump would make people “a little cautious initially” given his rhetoric during the campaign on issues such as border control, tariffs, China and Ukraine.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner is hopeful the re-election of Donald Trump will not spook travellers. Picture: Steve Pohlner

But he was hopeful stability would resume now he was the clear election winner.

“The hard thing is to understand how much of his rhetoric during the campaign was just campaigning and how much he might try to change things, and I think the general consensus is it was mainly rhetoric and that not too much will change, whether it’s in the Middle East or Ukraine or the trade situation with countries like China,” Mr Turner said.

“You could argue that from what we saw last time (he was president) is that his bark was worse than his bite.”

As it is, the US is proving to be one of the last of the Australian travel markets to fully recover from the Covid crisis, with short-term visits at two-thirds (66 per cent) of 2019 levels in August.

On inbound routes, the number of Americans visiting Australia was at 79 per cent of pre-pandemic figures, whereas short-term arrivals from the UK were at 96 per cent, and Japan at 86 per cent.

Australian Travel Industry Association chief executive Dean Long said he had not heard of anyone cancelling trips to the US on the back of Trump’s re-election, and it was unlikely the change of government would deter travellers.

He said ultimately the things which decide whether people visit America were “still there, still functioning”.

“What determines whether people go to America is not the president, it’s the experience, the cost and one of the major drivers of that is going to be the exchange rate,” Mr Long said.

“America is a high-cost destination, and that’s why we haven’t seen those pre-pandemic numbers return. It’s expensive – the taxes, the hotel rates, so there’s a few headwind factors.”

A strong greenback and steep hotel rates have slowed the return of Australians to the US, say travel industry leaders.

Given Mr Trump’s election in 2016 triggered a strengthening of the US dollar against the Australian currency, it seems unlikely there will be any cost relief anytime soon.

But for Americans considering a long-haul trip, Australia could become more appealing.

Former Tourism Australia managing director John O’Sullivan said it bodes well for the travel industry that Mr Trump’s re-election was being received favourably by global financial markets.

“If you look at what happened on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, they reacted very positively to the election result,” said Mr O’Sullivan, who now heads the Experience Co.

“The big driver of international travel has always been consumer confidence. It was more about ‘do you feel safe and secure in the job you hold at home, therefore you’re willing to spend money on an overseas trip’.”

If the Australian dollar continues to lose value against the greenback, it would only help deliver more tourists to “high value” destinations, such as Bali and Japan, Mr Long added.

In the past 12 months, 700,000 Australians travelled to Japan, and travel agents were not seeing any slowdown in the demand.

“If anything it will continue to grow,” Mr Long said. “Japan is accessible, it’s great value for money, it’s a destination most Australians still want to visit and now is the perfect time to be doing that.”

Originally published as Travel chiefs say Donald Trump no reason to avoid US but American holidays could get more expensive