Why Do U.S. Politicians Completely Ignore the Travel Industry in Election Season?
Photo Credit: President Donald J. Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, to begin his trip to California and Nevada. Flickr / Shealah Craighead/Official White House Photo
Skift Take
The travel industry is truly a diffused set of forces, both big business and people powered. Unfortunately it's easier for politicians to scare people with an imaginary foreign threat than articulate a vision for a better, more connected world.
As U.S. politicians stump on the campaign trail in anticipation of upcoming elections, they're rarely discussing issues related to the travel industry.
Silicon Valley, autos, health care, and Wall Street are all part of the political debate and policy pitches. Travel, however, is glaringly absent from the dialogue. This gap is something that Skift has been writing and talking about since our launch eight years ago. Travel is one of the world's largest industries by revenue and one of the largest sector employers by head count. And yet politicians essentially ignore it.
It was clear from the start that President Trump was not going to be a friend of the travel industry. While the sector continues to grow, his administration has fundamentally overlooked infrastructure investment while imposing a series of troubling travel and immigration bans.
The hotelier in the White House is walling off the U.S. from Mexico and has banned immigration from a slew of majority-Muslim nations. It
