Arne Sorenson Lashes Out at Trump’s Travel Policies

Arne Sorenson, chief executive of Marriott International, the world’s biggest hotel company has warned that Donald Trump’s immigration policies are damaging the US tourism industry. He expressed concerns that global travelers are avoiding traveling to the US this year.

Mr. Sorenson also said that companies and conferences were also choosing to host events in other countries due to the insecurity over restrictions on entry to the US. He said that Trump’s efforts to enforce a travel ban on visitors from some countries had harmed the country’s image as a friendly destination.

To quote Mr. Sorenson, “The [new US administration’s] actions around travel are not helpful. There’s no doubt about that. There’s no way to anticipate that they will be good news.”

As per the National Travel and Tourism Office, purchases of travel and tourism-related goods and services by international visitors to the US fell 1 per cent in January 2017 compared with January 2016.

Mr. Sorenson also said, “We are trying to encourage the administration to say: while we might be working on some of these other issue [such as security risks], we actually want to communicate a welcome to the rest of the world and encourage travel. Obviously, that voice does not seem very audible yet, but we’ll continue to work on it.” He said that there is an immediate fall in bookings from the Middle East and Mexico – which are targets of Trump’s speeches against immigration.