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The historic president’s signing of the still-controversial so-called Travel Ban dealt a crushing blow to U.S. tourism. Statistics for the first quarter of this year are in, and the odds of you experiencing a rapid recovery just got a little worse.
According to the U.S. Travel Association, preliminary data released this week show the U.S. share of international tourism dropped last quarter compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, arrivals from countries welcoming travelers back have dipped as well. Roughly 6.1 million international tourists visited the U.S. in the first quarter of 2018, and the estimate for the same period this year is 5.9 million.
The travel association says the number of travelers from countries with resident data matching China was up 25 percent in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the year before. The number of visitors from Russia was up 15 percent. The U.S. once again ranked first as the top country for travelers from countries where data is comparable.
For the year to date, only Germany has seen an increase in international visitors compared to last year. Spain, meanwhile, reported a 45 percent spike in their year-to-date numbers compared to the same period last year.
Read the full story at The New York Times.
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Photo credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza