Travel Officials And Lawmakers Express Concern Over Trump Budget’s Impact On Tourism

The White House has released its latest budget proposal, and for the travel industry, there’s little good news. Under the plan, the price of flying would rise, subsidies for long-distance trains would be cut, and Brand USA, the government’s inbound marketing arm, would be completely eliminated.

The document, which spells out the Trump Administration’s aims for the fiscal 2018 year, already has drawn sharp criticism from the industry and various members of Congress.

Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said the plan to gut Brand USA is “perplexing,” coming as it does at a time when inbound travel is already reeling from the effects of the now-stalled travel ban and other policies. “With all that’s going on in the world, unilaterally disarming the marketing of the U.S. as a travel destination would be to surrender market share at the worst possible time,” he said.

Dow and other industry officials pointed out that no U.S. taxpayer funds are used for Brand USA; rather, it’s funded through a mix of contributions from destination marketing organizations and private sector companies, which are matched by monies collected by the government from international travelers who visit the United States under the Visa Waiver program. The Trump plan, however, would instead steer those monies to new programs to boost border security, such as the building of a border wall.

Another budget proposal drawing criticism would add to the price of airline tickets, via an increase in the so-called Sept. 11 security fee, currently set at $5.60 per one-way flight. Under Trump’s latest proposal, that fee would rise by $1 per one-way trip to $6.60, or $13.20 for a roundtrip flight. The fee was last raised in 2014, at which point it was more than doubled from the original level of $2.50 one-way.

The security fee hike was expected, as the administration had already laid out a goal of having “users” – otherwise known as passengers – pay three-quarters of the cost of  TSA’s airport security operations (that’s not the agency’s entire budget, which includes equipment acquisition and other big ticket items).  But at a recent Senate committee hearing, lawmakers and industry witnesses complained that the much of the fees collected from passengers now goes to purposes other than airport security.

“There is no justification for asking airline customers to pay more, particularly while our government is diverting billions of dollars in security fees away from TSA checkpoints,” said Airlines for America, adding that the fee hike “will only serve to drive up the cost of flying for millions of Americans who rely on air travel.”

Several senators also complained that Trump’s proposal would reduce funding for some TSA programs, rather than using the extra funds for improving security.  “The threat to aviation is very high — we’ve had classified briefings on this, in fact — but we also see budget cuts to several TSA security programs,” said Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat.

The outlook for long-distance rail travel in the United States is also grim, if the budget proposal comes to pass: Federal budget proposals for fiscal 2018 could cut 15 Amtrak routes through 23 states, including the three daily trains that carry passengers through the tourist meccas of Florida’s east coast.  That’s despite the fact that Amtrak carried nearly 950,000 passengers through Florida last year, split about evenly between tourists and residents.