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US TRAVEL


Trumped-up travel


What will November’s shock US election result mean for the industry? BBT hails the new chief


By AMON COHEN D


ONALD TRUMP, BABY! WE GOT SOME HILLARY BITCHES ON HERE? Donald Trump! It’s your president. Every goddamn one of you. If you don’t like it, too


bad.” Thus were passengers aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta, and by symbolic implication every goddamn one of us in business travel, welcomed from an aircraft aisle to the election of the 45th president of the United States in late November. Though the manner in which he stated it


left much to be desired, this unknown herald of the Age of Trump (who received a life ban from Delta after his outburst was filmed by a fellow passenger) had a point. Whether anyone, including the greater number of Americans who voted for Mrs Clinton than her Republican rival, likes it or not, Donald J Trump will be inaugurated on January 20. Travel managers, along with everyone


else, therefore need to figure out how they may be affected, because, if his campaign


126 BBT January/February 2017


rhetoric and post-election behaviour are any guide, the new leader of the world’s second-largest business travel market (it lost top spot to China last year) does not play by normal rules. The problem is that Trump’s uncon- ventionality makes it very difficult to second-guess exactly how his presidency will affect managed travel. A capacity for mendacious and contradictory statements, that perhaps only Silvio Berlusconi among recent Western leaders has come close to rivalling, renders it impossible to know if any of Trump’s pre-election words will translate into actions once he assumes office. With that elephantine caveat clearly stated, here at least are some factors that could prove relevant for travel managers over the next four years.


GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS Viewed through the narrow prism of our particular sector, there could be some good news regarding the new president. “You would think with Trump’s election that


travel would have a friend in the White House,” says Greeley Koch, executive direc- tor of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. “He has hotels which cater for business travel and meetings, and he has airline experience.” More problematic is how Trump’s at-


titude will affect travel indirectly. “We have to be concerned about what was said on the campaign trail about borders, a Mexican wall and certain ethnic groups,” Koch continues. And the same volatility that afflicts the writing of a feature like this is also a worry. “Businesses like certainty,” says Koch. “They want to know what is going to happen so they can plan. At the moment, with Trump and Brexit, we have to hope companies don’t put things on hold. All this uncertainty will have a detrimental effect on travel.”


TRUMPONOMICS AND TRAVEL The state of the economy shapes travel pro- grammes in two basic ways: the number of trips companies make and how much they


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