24/03/2025

BIZ & FINANCE MONDAY | MAR 24, 2025

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Tourists turning away from Trump’s America o Strict immigration, a strong dollar, and global tensions could reshape the nation’s tourism for years

Britain pledges £600m to address construction skill gaps LONDON: Britain will invest £600 million (RM3.4 billion) to train construction workers and help tackle severe skills shortages that could undermine its plan to build 1.5 million homes by 2029 and boost economic growth, it said on Saturday. Housebuilding and improving British infrastructure are key parts of the Labour government’s growth strategy. Construction represents around 6% of GDP, but underpins growth in other sectors. “We are determined to get Britain building again, that’s why we are taking on the blockers to build 1.5 million new homes and rebuild our roads, rail and energy infrastructure,“ finance minister Rachel Reeves said in comments emailed by the Treasury on Saturday. “We’ve overhauled the planning system that is holding this country back, now we are gripping the lack of skilled construction workers.” Britain’s struggle to fill construction jobs was exacerbated by the 2016 Brexit vote and later Covid-19, which has led to higher vacancy levels than before the pandemic. Official figures published earlier this week showed there were 38,000 construction vacancies in the three months to February. Many skilled workers are also nearing retirement age. The Construction Products Association estimates that the industry will lose 500,000 employees, representing 25% of the total workforce, to retirement over the next 10 to 15 years. The government said it would spend £165 million of the planned investment to deliver more construction courses at colleges, and £100 million to upskill existing, new and returning workers. The Construction Industry Training Board, which represents homebuilding as well as infrastructure sectors, will contribute an additional £32 million to fund over 40,000 industry placements a year over the next four years. The government expects the total package to train up to 60,000 bricklayers, electricians, engineers, and carpenters by 2029. – Reuters

Canadians, the largest contingent of foreign tourists in the US with 20.4 million in 2024. According to Statistics Canada, the number of Canadians returning from the US fell 23% in February year-on-year, the second consecutive monthly decline. In New York, which welcomed 12.9 million foreign travellers in 2024, the effect is already noticeable, with Canadians cancelling tour bookings and a drop in online searches for hotels or Broadway shows, NYC Tourism president Julie Coker told AFP. She lowered her forecast for the year in February but said that so far, only Canadians are saying no to Trump’s America. “We’re not currently seeing anything from the UK or Europe,” because it’s too early, she said. “We are definitely watching that very closely.” But British and German authorities have just warned their nationals to be extra vigilant with their travel documents, citing the risk of arrest. United Airlines has noted a “big drop” in travel from Canada to the US as well as a decline in demand for domestic travel, as have several competitors. According to Tourism Economics, the tourism sector could lose about US$64 billion (RM283 billion) in revenue in 2025 due to the decline in international and domestic travel. Americans now appear frozen by the economic outlook, and terms like recession and inflation also scare tourists, along with the risk of a stronger greenback, experts point out. “This will make the US more expensive for inbound travellers, dampening both visitor volume and average length of stay,” noted Tourism Economics. Professionals also fear the effects of tightening immigration policy on major sports events hosted by the US such as the Ryder Cup (2025), the Fifa World Cup (2026), and the 2026 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

NEW YORK: In just a few weeks, the US tourism outlook has clouded as a result of some of President Donald Trump’s policy decisions, which have angered some foreign visitors and prompted fear of a surge in prices and a stronger dollar. Foreign traveller arrivals in the US are expected to decline by 5.1% in 2025 compared to last year, against a previously projected increase of 8.8%, Tourism Economics said in a report published late last month. Their spending is expected to slide 10.9%. Since the report’s publication, “the situation has deteriorated further,” and the outcome will likely be even worse, Tourism Economics president Adam Sacks said, citing “the effects of antipathy towards the US.” In recent weeks, the Trump administration has slapped tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China – and threatened to impose them on the European Union. A sweeping plan to curb immigration has intensified. Government bodies like the US Agency for International Development have been decimated, thousands of civil servants from lawyers to park rangers have been laid off, and Trump has drawn up controversial plans for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. “A situation with polarising Trump Administration policies and rhetoric will discourage travel to the US,” said Tourism Economics, a subsidiary of Oxford Economics. “Some organisations will feel pressure to avoid hosting events in the US, or sending employees to the US, cutting into business travel,” it added. The World Tourism Forum Institute said a mix of stringent immigration policies, a strong British Airways, whose main hub is Heathrow, said it had operated around 90% of its schedule on Saturday and promised a “near-full” schedule for Sunday after CEO Sean Doyle on Friday warned the “huge impact” would last days. The airport, the world’s fifth-busiest, had been due to handle 1,351 flights on Friday, flying up to 291,000 passengers. But the fire at a nearby electrical substation forced planes to be diverted to other airports and many long-haul flights returned to their point of departure. Britain’s energy ministry said on Saturday it had commissioned the National Energy System Operator to carry out an urgent investigation into the outage that raised questions about the resilience of the country’s critical infrastructure. Heathrow said it had tasked an independent board member, former transport minister Ruth Kelly, with undertaking a review of the airport’s crisis-management plan and its response to the incident with the aim of boosting resilience. Aviation experts said the last time European airports experienced disruption on such a large scale was the 2010 Icelandic volcanic ash cloud that grounded some 100,000 flights. “It has been absolutely insane”, said Amber Roden, a US citizen getting married in three days’ time, after a number of her relatives had

dollar and global political tensions “could significantly affect” international arrivals, “potentially reshaping the nation’s tourism sector for years to come.” Among residents of 16 European and Asian countries surveyed by YouGov in December, 35% of respondents said they were less likely to come to the US under Trump, while 22% were more likely. For tourists from France, Uzbekistan, and Argentina interviewed by AFP in New York’s Times Square, Trump’s stance has not upended their plans. Marianela Lopez and Ailen Hadjikovakis, both 33, nevertheless used their European passports rather than their Argentine ones to avoid any problems at the border. “We were a bit scared about the situation, but we didn’t change our plans,” said Lopez. The Lagardere family, who came from France, said it hadn’t impacted their plans either. The Americans “elected this president. It’s democracy. If they’re not happy, they’ll change it in four years,” said Laurent Lagardere, 54. “He is who he is” and avoiding the US “won’t change anything,” Lagardere added. Some 77.7 million foreign tourists were expected in 2024, up 17% year-on-year, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office, which does not yet have final figures for last year. Tourists from Western Europe who made up 37% of visitors in 2024 are the most likely to choose other destinations, along with Canadians and Mexicans. The US Travel Association warned in early February that customs tariffs would deter The vast majority of scheduled morning and early afternoon flights departed successfully on Saturday, with a handful of delays and cancellations, Heathrow’s departures website showed. “We don’t expect any major amount of flights to be cancelled or delayed,“ Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye told BBC radio. The airport has hundreds of additional staff on hand to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers travelling through the airport, a spokesman said in a statement. But airlines were still left dealing with disrupted schedules and the tens of thousands of passengers whose journeys had been interrupted. Virgin Atlantic said on Saturday that it was planning to run a near-full schedule with limited cancellations. Air India said it had restarted flights to and from Heathrow and expected to operate “as per schedule”. Several passengers travelling to Heathrow from London’s Paddington Station were still nervous. “I’m just hoping that when I get there, I can actually go,“ said university professor Melissa Graboyes, who said she was repeatedly checking the status of her flight to Toronto.

Heathrow to probe shutdown as travellers endure days of disruption LONDON: London’s Heathrow Airport resumed full operations on Saturday and ordered a probe into how it dealt with a power outage that shut Europe’s busiest air hub for almost a day as airlines warned of further delays and cancellations. their flights cancelled. Two relatives who were halfway to London from Atlanta had to turn around and go back, she said. Two others will not make it to the UK until the day of the wedding, which she has been planning for two years.

Fire at a nearby substation on Friday led to flight diversions and long-haul flights returning to their departure points. – UNSPLASH PIX

Police said that after an initial assessment they were not treating the incident as suspicious, although inquiries remained ongoing. London Fire Brigade said its investigations would focus on the electrical distribution equipment. The travel industry, facing the prospect of a financial hit costing tens of millions of pounds and a likely fight over who should pay, questioned how such crucial infrastructure could fail without backup.

“It is a clear planning failure by the airport,“ said Willie Walsh, head of global airlines body IATA, who, as former head of British Airways, has for years been a fierce critic of the crowded hub. Heathrow and London’s other major airports have been hit by other outages in recent years, most recently by an automated gate failure and an air traffic system meltdown, both in 2023. “Britain humiliated by airport fiasco,“ read a headline in the Sun newspaper. “Farcical”, wrote the Daily Mail . – Reuters