Safer to stay home? European firms rethink travel policy over U.S. border control concerns

CNBC

2 days ago

Some European companies are growing wary about sending their employees to the U.S.
It comes amid volatile policymaking by the Trump administration, more stringent immigration checks, and an uptick in reports of detentions and deportations.
Some businesses CNBC spoke to, in areas including engineering and accounting, stressed that their work trips to the U.S. continued unabated. But others, usually in more politically sensitive fields, flagged employee welfare concerns.
Their responses ranged from issuing new travel guidance — such as advising workers to bring wiped electronic devices or entering the U.S. via Canada — to encouraging attendance at U.S. events or conferences online where possible.
Business travel is a significant revenue source for the U.S. economy. According to a report published by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) last year, total spend in the sector generated a total $421 billion and $119 billion in tax revenue in 2022, the most recent year in which full data was available. That came from an estimated 429.9 million business trips supporting 6 million jobs.
Business travel is also a key revenue-maker for the aviation industry, generating between 50% and 75% of profit for airlines in many cases.
In a survey of 900 global travel buyers conducted by GBTA in April, 29% said they expected a decline in business travel volume at their companies in 2025 as a result of U.S. policy across both travel and tariffs. The survey also found a decline in overall optimism in the sector.
Any chilling effect would also come with international tourism expected to be dented this year, costing $12.5 billion in spending, due to negative perceptions of trade and immigration policy.
Border control and foreign visas have been highly charged issues since President Donald Trump took office in January, with reports of tourists being held in detention centres for long periods. The White House pledged in January that all foreigners seeking to enter the U.S. would be "vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible."
Relations between the U.S. administration and the academic community have also soured, following moves to pause international student visa issuance and "aggressively revoke" visas for Chinese students, as well as the detention of some foreign students on apparently political grounds.
"We're hearing some international travellers have expressed unease about visiting the U.S. due to increased visa scrutiny, social media monitoring, and incidents of detention or deportation despite valid documents," said Prashray Kala, a partner at management consultancy Everest Group.
"Those with a visible online footprint are more cautious, especially with the 'Catch and Revoke' policy enhancing surveillance," Kala said.
Announced April 30, this policy means that anyone with a U.S. visa will lose their immigration status after one strike for any violation of U.S. law, regardless of severity.
One European fund manager who frequently travels to the U.S. for business said he was concerned immigration authorities at airports could hinder his travel plans due to a change in political attitude, rather than policy.
"Business travel on an ESTA [visa] is no longer what it used to be", the fund manager said.
The head of an international non-government organization with headquarters in London told CNBC that they had devised a new travel protocol for the U.S.
The policy goes beyond their usual requirements for information about an employee's movements and contact details, into issues around physical and information security. The NGO produces investigative reports into topics spanning climate change, corporate malpractice and corruption.
Employees CNBC spoke to for this story requested anonymity to be able to discuss internal workplace matters.
"On one level for us as an organization, that shouldn't really require us to break into a sweat, we do that for lots of places that our staff travel to," the NGO chief executive said.
"But from a personal perspective, this is very illuminating — in a not very pleasant way — because these are the sorts of things I think about when I travel to, say, China or Azerbaijan, autocratic regimes. The idea that we would have to apply that approach to travel to the U.S. is something which would never have occurred to me until just a few months ago."
Examples include taking "burner" phones or computers only used for the trip, and preparing employees for scenarios in which they are aggressively questioned about their travel intentions or things they have published online, they said.
Separately, an academic researcher at a university in Switzerland told CNBC that they had been provided with guidance to ideally travel into the U.S. via Canada where possible, or to attend conferences virtually to avoid any visa complications.
They noted that some of their colleagues were still making trips to the U.S. without incident, but others had been questioned at the border for longer, and some had decided not to attend summer academic conferences stateside. Visiting programs to U.S. universities have been particularly affected and even put on hold, they added.
All of those CNBC spoke to across a range of industries agreed that the prevailing climate around U.S. travel was one of uncertainty.
"There is, of course, a risk of overreacting to this ... ploughing more of our time and resources into preparing for this than actual, tangible risk warrants," the NGO chief said.
"There's always this question of how you separate out the outright bluster from what might be substantive and might actually be acted on. I think probably this time around, we take more of the bluster seriously."