Election 2024: The Issues That Matter For Travel

Skift Take

The U.S. has made a lot of progress at removing barriers to travel. The best thing the new president can do is to keep knocking them down.

Lex Haris

Will the time it takes to get a visa to travel to the U.S. continue to come down? How will a new administration evaluate potential deals? More travel bans coming? 

The race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is essentially tied heading into election day and we don’t know when a winner will be called. But there will be a new president next January and a wide range of implications for the travel industry. 

And even before that point, no matter who wins, you can expect a short-term travel slowdown in the weeks around the election. Marriott noted that’s always the case, but that it’s much more pronounced this cycle – the adverse impact on revenue per available room is about double what it has been in past election cycles. Delta, United and JetBlue have said they expect travel to slow down around Election Day, in line with historic trends. 

As for the long-term, both candidates have a record to guide us in thinking through the potential impact. Of course, Harris would have her own set of priorities as president that could differ from those of the past four years. 

Visas and International Visitors

Travel company CEOs have kept mostly quiet about politics this season. But they’re clear about one thing: They want travelers to keep coming to the U.S. and to make it as seamless as possible. 

“There’s so much opportunity,” said Wyndham Hotels CEO Geoff Ballotti, referring to the growth that would come with bringing down barriers to travel. 

On that front, there’s been progress during the Biden-Harris administration.

The State Department expedited visitor visa application reviews to resolve the backlog built up during the pandemic. In 2023, it filled its consular positions back to pre-pandemic levels. And it used the visa interview waiver authority to allow its staff to remotely resolve “tens of thousands of applications each week.” 

At the Skift Global Forum in September, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma said the State Department has largely been able to get visa wait times back to pre-pandemic levels but acknowledged there’s more work to be done in some countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and India. He said wait times are affected by the strong demand for travel to the U.S. and America’s security concerns.

During the Trump administration, visa issuances had been declining even before the pandemic. The administration implemented more enhanced screening, vetting and denials of visa applicants from countries flagged for higher security concerns like China. International visitors dipped slightly in 2019, to 79.4 million. 

Now, the U.S. is on pace to attract 90 million visitors by 2026, a year ahead of the State Department’s goal, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said last week. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said recently the U.S. issued 11.5 million visas in fiscal 2024, 8.5 million of which were visitor visas, a 10% increase from 2023.   

In 2017, President Donald Trump enacted travel bans on citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and he’s said he’d do it again. Though none of the countries on the travel ban list were in the top 20 source markets for the U.S.

Approach to Big Business, Deals and Consumer Protections

The Biden-Harris administration has taken a tough stance on mergers. It killed JetBlue’s merger with Spirit Airlines and JetBlue’s Northeast Alliance with American.

The Department of Transportation approved the merger of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines but stressed the addition of consumer protections. 

The agency has also taken a heavy hand in oversight, including hefty penalties on Southwest ($140 million) for its 2022 meltdown and American ($50 million) for violation of disability rules. 

There have also been a host of tougher rules on the industry in the name of protecting consumers. Airlines have to give automatic refunds. A rule that would force more price transparency by airlines is currently blocked – and a new administration would have a big say in whether to keep fighting for it. A similar rule was dropped during the Trump administration as part of a push to reduce regulations. 

Just in October, the Department of Justice said that it would launch a “broad public inquiry” into the state of competition in air travel, which follows a DOT inquiry into loyalty programs. It’s unclear what would happen to those inquiries in a new administration. 

On the other hand, the current FTC still hasn’t voted through its final rule on junk fees, which would require fee disclosures by hotels and short-term rental companies, among other businesses. 

Climate, Infrastructure, Tariffs and Taxes

Climate: The travel industry can expect a continued focus on climate change from Harris, and a rollback under Trump. 

In 2021, the Biden-Harris administration re-entered the Paris Climate Accord after the Trump administration pulled out of the agreement in 2017. That re-committed the U.S. to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and working with other nations to combat global warming​​. And the Inflation Reduction Act under Biden-Harris provided incentives to develop sustainable aviation fuel. 

Infrastructure: Hotels and airlines have benefited from more than $1 trillion in infrastructure spending under Biden-Harris. For example, Wyndham, Choice Hotels, and BWH Group (the company behind Best Western) are particularly well-positioned, with thousands of properties near construction sites and set up to house workers. Geoff Ballotti from Wyndham Hotels, told Skift he sees a “10-year golden run” ahead for economy hotels.

Biden has also pledged $1 billion for airport infrastructure projects as part of an effort to modernize U.S. airports. 

Taxes and Tariffs: This is a key area of difference between Trump and Harris. 

Trump brought the corporate tax rate to 21%, and wants to bring it down further.  Harris wants to raise it back to 28%.  

Trump imposed some tariffs and though the Biden administration kept many in place, Trump has said he wants to go far further if he wins again. Potential risks would be higher costs for companies that hit profits and higher prices that weigh on demand for travel. 

If other countries retaliate with their own tariffs, as is widely expected, one risk would be making Boeing less competitive at a time when the global aviation industry is hungry for new aircraft and Boeing is already behind on deliveries. 

Most important for travel demand – but toughest to forecast – will be the state of the economy and employment more broadly. Forecasters had been widely projecting a recession that never came and the unemployment rate has stayed low at just over 4%. 

Additional reporting by Dawit Habtemariam, Meghna Maharishi, Sean O’Neill