Australians curb their enthusiasm for US holidays
Flight Centre chief executive Graham Turner said business travel to the US was holding up, but fewer Australians were booking holidays there.
'Certainly compared to the pre-Trump era, everything that we see … is the leisure market in particular is down. There's no doubt that April and May have been down,' Turner said.
'US carriers have increased their capacity [to Australia] over the last six to 12 months, and there's no doubt they'll be suffering a bit.
'There's been cheaper airfares through sales and there will be [more] over the next few months unless things dramatically improve.'
More than a million Australians visited the US last year. The country's latest official figures show 291,230 Australians visited the US from January to April, down 0.2 per cent on the same period last year. In April, Australian visitor numbers to the US grew 1 per cent year-on-year to 89,363.
Meanwhile, 83,460 Americans arrived in Australia this March, making the US the second-largest source of visitors behind New Zealand. Australia's favourite destinations over the same period were New Zealand, Indonesia and Japan.
Mitchell said young people most affected by the cost of living were choosing cheaper destinations such as Latin America or Asia, instead.
He said the April slump in the Australian dollar sparked by Trump's tariff wars had 'spooked a lot of people' from booking trips to the US.
'The feedback we're getting is the US is an expensive destination to go to, with the service taxes and the tipping. And I think that word of mouth has honestly been getting around for a while now,' Mitchell said.
He said even those who could afford to visit the US were cutting back on costs. 'I don't think it's stopping some people from going there, but it probably does change how they travel a bit. They might not go for 2½, three weeks; they might go for two weeks. They might not go five-star, they might go four-star or three-star,' he said.
Qantas, which operates about 40 return flights a week between Australia and the US, said demand for US travel was holding up locally.
Chief executive Vanessa Hudson recently said the airline was feeling optimistic about demand for the US, and 'business-purpose travel and business travel in premium cabins remains strong'.
The airline said this year's sale for flights to the US had outperformed similar sales last year.
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Michael Feller, an ex-diplomat and foreign policy adviser, said the second Trump presidency had caused enormous damage to US soft power and prestige. But he said it was difficult to trace that into consumer behaviour beyond unique cases like Canada.
'Boycotts are really tricky,' said Feller, who is now chief strategist at Geopolitical Strategy, which provides advice to companies around the world.
'US products are ubiquitous. And when you consume a quintessential US product like Coke, it's manufactured and bottled in Australia. And then there are other quintessential products like iPhones, which are manufactured and assembled in China. So, it's hard to disentangle 'Brand US'.'
Despite gloom over Trump's trade wars, Feller said there were two silver linings for Australia.
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'The Australian consumer will probably benefit from Trump's trade wars insofar as cheap Chinese goods will be dumped on our shores, leading to lower costs,' he said.
'And if Trump cracks down on international students, those students will presumably look to a country like ours to study.'
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