The U.S. Is Losing To Canada In One Huge (Pronounced YUGE) Way, Thanks To Mexico
The U.S. Is Losing To Canada In One Huge (Pronounced YUGE) Way, Thanks To Mexico
In the past year we’ve heard a lot about what countries the U.S. is losing to, in particular Mexico and China, being the most referenced. Well, a new study by Forbes shows that the U.S. may seen lose big to none other than our neighbors to the North. The U.S. could lose $1.6 billion in by 2018 in money from Mexican tourists traveling to the U.S.
According to Forbes:
Mexican sentiment for the U.S. has been lagging since the primary elections when then-incumbent Donald Trump claimed that Mexican immigrants were rapists and drug dealers. There were reports of Trump piñatas, angry newspaper op-eds and anti-Trump murals. During the presidential debate, Mexicans held drinking games, knocking one back every time their country was mentioned.
At the same time, Canada has made it easier than ever to visit. In June 2016, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced visa-free travel for Mexicans. Since the policy was first announced, Mexican tourism to Canada has been skyrocketing, increasing 16%, according to ForwardKeys, a travel trend predicting firm.
What’s even more amazing? The fact that that since Canada implemented visa waiver for Mexican citizens traveling to Canada, there has been an 82% increase in the number of Mexican traveling to Canada. During that same time period, bookings to the U.S. have decreased by 9%.
Now, I am not someone who believes correlation always leads to causation, but I think there is something to be said for expanding travel and making it more readily available for the greatest number of people. If anything, this demonstrates that making travel easier can most likely lead to an increase in travelers, which of course, is always good for an economy. Last month I wrote about the Emirates CEO’s comments of how the travel ban was impacting business. In January, the Marriott CEO spoke about how he worried Trump policies could negatively impact the industry.
The U.S. should do what it can to expand travel to its country. There’s a lot to see here and it would be a shame to lose out on visitors because we failed to see the impact travel policies can have on tourism.
And there’s been a spike in refugee claims from Mexico.
Relevance to your readership’s ability to travel cheap/free? Or is this now officially a Mexican travel blog? Your inability to resist the urge to push your brand of politics in your miles/points blog is unfortunate, but increasingly common among your kind. Doing this will garner you few “converts”, but will steer many away from your affiliate links. So if attempted indoctrination is that valuable to you, go for it.
And this is just the beginning. The US will suffer greatly by slashing trade with Mexico
This will be off set by the money the USA will save by illegal immegrants that are now sneaking into Canada from the USA. Skynews had a great piece on the newscast tonight axtually.
Wait until the Canadians discover that a whole lot of the Mexicans aren’t returning to Mexico, then try to take advantage of Canada’s generous entitlement programs.