"One Big Beautiful Bill?"

by Steve Richer, DC Correspondent

After the bill signing of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" by President Trump on July 4, the industry has had a chance to digest some of the impacts on the inbound travel industry.

The 1000-page comprehensive budget bill had lots of surprises, as not even all those voting for it in the House and Senate were totally aware of all the elements included. It is noteworthy to acknowledge that this piece of legislation was passed by the narrowest of margins in both houses without a single Democratic vote in either chamber.

While there will be a continuing national debate on its impact on major items, such as Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, and other broadly based consumer programs, as well as hefty tax cuts for higher earners, the inbound travel industry will be focused on how the new bill affects our part of the tourism economy.

Two elements are causing the most concern.

First, the reduction of funding from the ESTA fees for Brand USA from $100 million annually to $20 million will impact its budget significantly, unless there is an unusually large series of private sector contributions to make up the shortfall. Without more contributions, programming, representation in key markets, sponsorships, and possibly staffing will be cut. All of this at a time, when other issues, such as tariffs and travel bans, are causing the United States to be the only country in the world experiencing less inbound visitors. Brand USA has a challenging year (or more) ahead.

Secondly, one of America's key attractions, all the units of the National Park Service, are being hit with blasts from a two-barrel shotgun.  On one hand, both full-time and seasonal staff reductions will impact both services and conditions at the various parks, while the second blast, dramatically increased entry fees for international visitors, is likely to be a deterrent, too. Implicitly, the fee differential will require the now short-staffed parks to identify the nationality of all visitors when they enter any unit with a fee collection.

On top of these two major impacts, the legislation increases both visa fees and ESTA (visa waiver) fees, making it significantly more expensive to get credentials to visit the United States.

Finally, there are other related issues both in the bill and other policy initiatives, including adding more countries to the US inbound travel ban and a massive increase in the number of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) personnel to the tune of 10,000 more agents. These items can also be discouraging to prospective international inbound visitors by either denying entry at all or frightening prospective visitors about the security of being in the United States.

There is a meeting scheduled next week of the IITA Advocacy Committee to dig into all of these issues and to develop a strategy moving forward.  As always, please advise IITA staff of any complications your business is experiencing, so that practical impacts can be considered in any deliberations on strategy moving forward.