TravelTube.com Podcast - Episode Transcript
Host: Mark Murphy
Hi, I'm Mark Murphy and this is TravelTube.com. Quick reminder: if you haven't subscribed at TravelTube.com, please do that. We send a weekly newsletter highlighting some of the posts from travel advisors, travel influencers, and of course our weekly podcast. But that's just step one. Then you can follow us on your favorite social media platforms because we're everywhere, as well as your favorite podcast apps. If you're driving your car, you can just listen to my soothing voice... or maybe not, depending on what you want to do.
This week I'm going to get into a few things. We're not interviewing a travel advisor this week or a travel supplier. I'm going to give you a little bit of insight into more of the media world and what's going on.
Topics Covered Today:
The Visa Bond Program - You've probably heard about that, where people have to put up $15,000 in order to come into our country. There’s a bit of misinformation is out there and I’ll address that.
The "Trump Excuse" - The latest is an article about TUI travel blaming Trump for a drop in business, but then the article contradicts that a little bit.
Taxation Without Representation - Why governments love to tax visitors and why that's a bad thing
The Dreaded Resort Fee
The Visa Bond Program
Why the visa bond program? Well, there are certain countries around the world who send people to the United States. Those people come in, they have a visa, they stay and enjoy themselves, but then they overstay.
To put it in perspective: in 2023, just 2023, 500,000 people overstayed their travel visa. 500,000.
So people want to know, "Why are you imposing this bond?" They agree to leave the country as they agreed they would do when they came in, within a set timeframe based on what country they're coming from and what they plan on doing in the United States. Very simple.
That $15,000 doesn't get taken from them. They're not paying a fee for that. It's a bond that gets returned to them should they leave under the agreement they signed when they came here.
By the way, it's got to be a big enough number so that if somebody is coming here... if it was a couple hundred bucks, who cares? Big deal. Even if it was a thousand dollars, they can overstay, they can work the black market, they can get wages under the table because they're not legally allowed to work here. They can make that up in a couple of weeks doing any kind of jobs.
So the design here is to prevent that, and it's only starting with two countries: Malawi and Zambia. It's a pilot. People in the travel industry are in a little bit of a tizzy saying "It's going to kill travel and tourism." Yeah, because Malawi is such a big inbound market for the United States.
I don't get why people get worked up about this stuff because there's a thing called the Visa Waiver Program. The vast majority of our tourism that comes from overseas comes from what are called visa waiver countries. That means that person goes online, pays 21 bucks - that's called the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
Personally, I'd like to get rid of all visa fees. I think that if you get rid of these fees, you actually increase tourism. Other than the bond - because if you've got perpetrators coming in and overstaying their time here and they're doing that to such a degree (500,000 people, that's a pretty good-sized city in the United States), what are these people doing? Why are they overstaying? Are they criminals? Are they here to do bad? We don't know.
But if they can't agree to what they signed up for - which is "we're only going to stay as long as we're permitted and then we're going to leave" - then I have no problem with that, especially when it's starting with two basically insignificant countries that have abused our border and abused their requirements to leave the country as designated.
As far as fees in general, I hate those exit fees that you get hit with at airports from different countries. I hate the visa landing fees, all the other stuff that's out there. Of course, if you're in America traveling abroad, the blue passport gets you to many countries with the visa waiver program, so you don't have to apply for a visa and get approved and all that other stuff.
Media Coverage and the "Trump Excuse"
Now, I mentioned the TUI article and the journalist that is obviously exhibiting TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) like so many are. I just wish they weren't so brainwashed because I like this guy, I do. But when I see something that misrepresents what's really going on and uses inflammatory quotes to try to make a point, I call him out.
Donald Trump, for everybody in the travel industry - whether you like Donald Trump or you don't like Donald Trump, it doesn't matter - he won't be president in less than three and a half years. In about another 12 months, we're going to be in a full-blown election cycle. You have a lot more stuff to talk about.
Obviously, I think it becomes an excuse for a lot of businesses. Even having the CEO of Southwest talking about how they're getting impacted by these policies... look at the makeup of the routes for Southwest. It's almost all domestic.
90% of our revenue as a country when it comes to travel comes from domestic travel - Americans traveling in America. 10% comes from outside. And yet we are the king of travel in terms of revenues because of the size of the country, the number of people, etc.
The TUI CEO Story
So why would you write an article focused on the CEO of TUI, a packager that sells trips around the world, whose own CEO says the US is a relatively small part of their revenue mix, so it hasn't really had a big impact?
His name is Sebastian Ebel, CEO. On a recent earnings call, he said that his customers are looking to go to Canada, Africa, Asia, instead of the US. It's a UK-based operator. He says, quote: "The main reasons for it being the tensions we see, but also news about traveling to the US becoming more difficult."
Why? Because we're now asking anybody who wants to stay more than 30 days from a visa waiver country like the UK to pay $21 for the authorization. Or is it the things that you see in The Guardian that are hyperbolic headlines that misrepresent actually what's going on in terms of our customs and border protection?
Maybe the issue isn't so much the difficulty in travel per se. Maybe it has a lot to do with... let's look at the UK. Could it have anything to do with GDP per capita? Back in 1990, the US was at basically $24,000 and the UK was at $21,000. Guess what it is today? The UK has gone from $21,000 to $55,000, but the US is now at $90,000 GDP per capita.
Policies matter. Capitalism matters. Growing your economy matters. Obviously, the US has done a much better job of that, and that's why the US is kind of like the safe place for investors in this sea of chaos that's going on around the world.
The Sarah Shaw Case Study
The article uses Sarah Shaw from New Zealand as an example. The journalist wrote: "Obviously, no one wants to go on vacation, get abducted by masked men, and end up in a detention center. Of course, it's going to affect tourism."
Let me hit the brakes on that.
Sarah Shaw came from New Zealand in 2021 and within a year married a US citizen. She's already divorced within a year, but she has kids and she's employed by Washington state. She drove to Vancouver from Washington State to drop her kids off at the airport for a cheaper fare to visit their grandparents in New Zealand.
When she came back after dropping her older two kids off, she got stopped at the border. Guess what? Her travel document was expired.
So she leaves the country on an expired travel visa, then tries to re-enter the country a few hours later on the same expired visa. She gets flagged. She's with her child, young kid, toddler, and she gets detained.
The journalist claims nobody wants to go on vacation and get abducted by masked men. But she wasn't on vacation - she works in the United States. They weren't masked - they were at the normal immigration checkpoint. She did end up in the detention center because she had an expired travel visa.
She had to get an attorney because she messed up. We have rules now. We don't just let everybody walk into the country. That's over, and I'm really happy that's over because there's been a monumental financial drain - probably in the last four years, $1.5 to $2 trillion collectively that we don't have as a country.
They sent her to a family detention center in Texas so they could keep her and her three-year-old together, not separate families at the border. It's designed for this exact thing - keeping them together.
If you want to know what's affecting tourism, when you write stories like this, you perpetuate the myth and create more obstacles to travel. I can unequivocally state that the issue that we're having with inbound travel to the United States is directly because of the media's portrayal, including by this writer - spreading fear, blaming policies that secure our borders.
World Travel and Tourism Council Comments
Julie Simpson, CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council, says: "Of 184 countries, the US is the only one that's seeing an absolute decline in international visitor spending. The US is definitely losing its crown in this area."
The story continues: "The Trump administration now requires all foreigners 14 or older to register and submit fingerprints if they intend to stay beyond 30 days."
Then Julie says: "The rest of the world are putting up open signs and getting people to come and see their country. The US at the minute has firmly got a 'we're not open for business' close sign, which is a great shame."
Here's why I hate quotes like this: Could someone remind the journalist and Julie Simpson that the EU is implementing biometric data collection? If you want to come to the EU, you have to submit biometric data - a photo and fingerprints for a visa application for the electronic travel authorization system for visa-exempt countries.
So Europe is collecting your biometric data, but somehow the US doing fingerprints for anybody staying over 30 days... we're not requiring that if you want to come here from the UK or Germany for a couple of weeks. They are.
So Julie, what's the deal? Does all of Europe have a we are closed sign out?
Taxes and Fees: The Real Tourism Killer
The more you tax something, the less you get of it. Keep this in mind. Why do they call taxes on cigarettes and alcohol "sin taxes"? Because they want to make it more expensive.
When you impose exorbitant taxes on travel and additional fees on travel, what do you get less of? You get less travel. I'm talking about fees that add 30% to the cost of a stay in New York City.
New York City Hotel Tax Breakdown
Here's a real example from a TripAdvisor post. A traveler from Zurich spent one week with a family of four in New York at the Hyatt Grand Central. He was surprised about the number of taxes and fees. The bill for seven nights was four pages long:
- Accommodations: $354 for the room
- NYC Sales Tax (8.875%): $31.45
- NYC Occupancy Tax (almost 6%): $21
- Unit Occupancy Tax: $2 per night (because room rate was higher than $40)
- NYC Javits Occupancy Tax: $1.50 per night (this was supposed to be temporary, ended in 2021, but it's still here in 2025)
- Destination Fee: $40
- Sales tax on the destination fee: 9%
- NYC occupancy tax on the destination fee: 6%
Total taxes on a $354 hotel room: $101.66
They tax the fees that they charge you!
The Resort Fee Scam
The destination fee is the good old resort fee. Resort fees are so ridiculous, especially in places like Las Vegas. They can go to $50 to $60 a day per room.
"Thank you for visiting our hotel, the charge is $500 a night here at the Bellagio. That doesn't include our $55 resort fee so you can use the pool."
"What do you mean use the pool?"
"Well, if you want to use the pool, the gym, anything else here on the property, we're going to charge for that."
"But I'm paying $500 a night for the room. Why are you charging me a resort fee?"
"The hotel room is part of the resort. However, if you would like to swim in our pool, you're going to pay the $55 fee."
The hotel industry has hurt itself with these resort fees. Let me tell you why they do it:
- Search Result manipulation: When you go online and search prices, by charging a resort fee, a $200 hotel might look like $150. But then you go to book it and realize there's an additional $300 for six nights if it's a $50 resort fee per night.
- Commission avoidance: When a travel agent books it, they only get commission on the base rate, not the resort fee. That money goes right to the hotel's bottom line.
At the Hyatt Grand Central: Where's the resort? They don't call it a resort fee - they change it to a "destination fee" because you're at their destination. Forty bucks. What does that get you? Probably gets you a couple of bottles of water that you could buy at the corner for a dollar and internet access.
Conclusion
You have priced yourself out in many places like Las Vegas of the average customer. The only way to swing it back is stop the nonsense. Stop the resort fees. Let people know what they're paying upfront. You don't get angry customers at check-in going, "Why am I paying for this?"
If you want a nice steak dinner in Vegas - just the steak is $85 in some of these restaurants. Dinner's going to run you $400-500 if you get a bottle of wine. Plus $500 for the room, plus $50-60 for the resort fee, plus you have to get there, plus you're taking taxis or Ubers everywhere, plus parking fees.
And then people are wondering why travel to certain places is down.
Closing
Hope you're having a good one. Please subscribe to TravelTube.com, follow us on your favorite podcast apps, follow us on your favorite social media apps - we're everywhere. You'll get a lot of tidbits from actual travel experts, travel agents, travel advisors, because they literally save you money and get you better deals than are in the public domain.
Until next time, I'm Mark Murphy and this is TravelTube.com. Join us.
