U.S travel policy boosts Canadian tourism gains

If international travellers needed yet another reason to not visit the United States, this is it.

The Trump administration is planning to require visitors from dozens of nations — including allies such as Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom — to provide personal information about themselves and their relatives prior to entering America.

According to a notice posted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security earlier this week, the additional information that would have to be disclosed prior to entry would include five years of each traveller’s social media history, their past 10 years of emails, as well as the personal information of immediate family members, including phone numbers and residences.

The new scheme is part of a planned overhaul of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, which permits citizens of 42 nations enrolled in the program to visit America for up to 90 days for tourism or business travel reasons without requiring them to apply for a visa prior to entry.

Instead of being required to apply for a visa, prospective visitors from those nations must submit an application online by using a process known as the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (known to many as ESTA) prior to entering the U.S. The new disclosure requirements would be implemented through changes to the ESTA process.

The changes would apparently not apply to Canadian travellers — at least not yet — because Canada is not part of the ESTA program that is required for Visa Waiver Program visitors. Canadian citizens currently enjoy more favourable entry rules, generally not requiring visas for tourism and/or business travel to the U.S.

That exemption essentially gives Canadian citizens visa-free access under different immigration laws, making the VWP irrelevant to us. On the other hand, permanent residents (landed immigrants) of Canada are required to obtain a visa, potentially exposing them to the increased disclosure requirements and the risk of other enhanced U.S. immigration policies.

The exemption for Canadians may sound reassuring right now, but there is no guarantee the Trump administration won’t eventually impose similarly intrusive requirements on Canadians sometime in the future. Given past rhetoric from U.S. government officials, it seems unlikely that the Americans favour exempting Canadian travellers from similar disclosure obligations.

U.S. President Donald Trump argues the enhanced disclosure requirements are necessary, saying, “We want safety, we want security, we want to make sure we’re not letting the wrong people come into our country.”

Critics within the U.S. argue, however, that the new rules could cause even greater harm to the beleaguered American tourism industry, which is already suffering as a result of the international community’s negative reaction to other Trump administration policies.

That is a valid concern, based upon facts. In May, the World Travel and Tourism Council projected that international visitor spending in the U.S. would be $12.5 billion lower in 2025 than in the previous year. The planned entry requirements, with their heavy-handed trampling of traveller privacy, will likely result in even greater losses this year and in future years.

That should come as no surprise, given the Trump administration’s isolationist policies and its hostile treatment of visitors, including arbitrary detentions and deportations. What traveller would willingly expose themselves to that danger?

If the U.S. is determined to make visitors feel even more unwanted, other nations are more than willing to welcome those travellers, and that is certainly the case here in Canada.

Thanks to Trump’s policies, Canada’s tourism sector is experiencing record-shattering numbers for the current year. Total tourism spending is projected to reach approximately $183 billion, domestic visitor spending is projected to reach nearly $104 billion and international visitor spending is projected to reach $34 billion.

Those are huge numbers, but this latest U.S. scheme to invade the privacy of travellers to that nation has the potential to make next year’s revenues even higher in Canada. That potential windfall lends itself to a rather obvious sales pitch:

You’re always welcome in Canada. We won’t read your emails and we don’t care about your social media activities. Just have fun and tell your friends.