President Trump’s ‘extreme vetting’ policies are starting to bite inbound tourism, according to data from destination discovery service Foursquare.
Using location based data from 13 million Foursquare’s users, The US’ overall market share of tourism fell 16% in March 2017 compared to 2016.
It began plunging in the fall and is down 11% year over year for the period between October 2016 and March 2017.
In contrast Foursquare found leisure travel in the rest of the world increased 6% during the same period.
Travelers from the Middle East markedly fell by a quarter earlier in the year at the height of the immigration ban of nationals from several muslim majority countries.
The figures only represent market share of tourism and not actual tourism arrivals but Foursquare said it was highly unlikely tourist visits increased to the US while the market share suffered a double digit decline.
"I don’t think you’d see a 16% decline in international market share and absolute numbers being up. I don’t think that’s compatible. The volume of tourism doesn’t change that fast," Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck told BuzzFeed.
