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[–] 93 points 1 year ago

😂😂😂 they ticket mastered tourism.

It just keeps getting dumber.

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  • [–] 185 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (26 children)

    The “visa integrity fee” applies to all visitors who need nonimmigrant visas, which includes tourists, business travelers and international students.

    The fee is paid when the visa is issued, according to the provision.

    Every international business meeting and conference just cancelled. Visits to Disney World plummet.

    Who needs visas: https://brilliantmaps.com/visa-free-usa/

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  • [–] 59 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    It's only to prevent poor people from South America, Africa, Eastern Europe/Asia. Europe/Japan/Australia is still free to go there.

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  • [–] 57 points 1 year ago* (6 children)

    Apparently it's a big thing in South America to go to Disney World. Family of 4 just added $1k. It'll make you think twice.

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  • [–] 37 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    When I flew back from Brazil last year to Orlando, almost the entire plane was families with kids, a lot of which were wearing Disney merch. I bet that flight will soon be much less full as $250 is currently almost R$1,400 per person. R$5,500 additional for a family of 4 is a LOT of money in Brazil.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It’ll make you think twice.

    So will the lottery of a lucky few people being sent to their new home in El Salvador.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Professor at a large Canadian university here- interest in our EFL study tours from Europe, Latin America, and East Asian countries has skyrocketed this year as MANY of our partner universities are cancelling (or placing on indefinite hiatus) their US programs.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (10 children)

    $250 is a rounding error for most international business travelers. That's the cost of one moderately nice business dinner for 3 people. Between airfare, hotels, and meals, that's less than 10% of the cost of almost all international business trips, with the possible exception of some quick jump from Toronto to Detroit for a lunch meeting.

    Same for a lot of international leisure travelers.

    This is a filter to keep 'the poors' away

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    For 1 person you could, but send over a team and it just added up. You'd do it only if you really need to woo a customer, something that directly adds to the bottom line. If it's for training or a casual meeting, why would you? I know the perception is companies have endless money but they really don't and they pinch pennies plenty. Travel adds up.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    The percentage doesn't change for a team vs individual. 3 people also need 3 plane tickets, 3 hotel rooms, etc.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    The boss doesn't care about the percentage, they care about the bill. The total amount.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I am one of the bosses. I've been around lots of businesses that do this kind of thing, including tiny startups.

    I'm telling you for most businesses, if they've bothered to send someone on a business trip that costs $2500+ per person for an important reason, they aren't going to cancel it over $250. That's foolish.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Business travel elasticity has traditionally been around 0.4, meaning business travellers will tolerate higher fees with only a small drop in demand. But there would still be a drop.

    What no one has mentioned here so far is that the $250 additional visa fee is refundable. But it's not automatically refunded. You have apply for it after meeting some basic conditions. So for businesses, it's really a much smaller administrative cost.

    So far the process for applying for the refund hasn't been established. So it's all a bit of a hot mess still.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Fun part is that if the fee is refundable, but requires a process, then some company travel policies might stick such a fee with the employee if they fail to correctly do the process to get the refund. In such a company it might be one more thing for an employee to think about declining travel because they might personally get stuck with the bill.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Ironically cash strapped startups might not care like a big multinational would.

    Travel expenses in a bearaucracy can get weird and people who don't care about the business case are in charge of travel expenses, and they only get recognition by cutting costs, often in stupid ways.

    I worked at a company like that and to give an example of the results of such a bearaucracy, they had this 20 thousand dollar product that shipped maybe 500 units a year. For some reason they became fixated on if they could delete a 25 cent part to reduce cost. The team sized the regulatory work needed to evaluator and presented the 60 thousand dollar estimate and figured that would be the end of it, no way you would spend 60k to maybe cut total company cost by 125 dollars per year. To their surprise the project was approved, they did the work, and confirmed the 25 cent part was still needed to be in compliance with some government regulations...

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago*

    I already said it's not about 1 person, it's about a team. I see you're finally adding the caveats "for an important reason", that's what I've been saying all along. Now you just have to add the other things I've been saying: For training and random conferences, it adds up. It's about the total cost. Etc. Ok I think this has reached its end point, ciao.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    A lot of company travel policies are strangely stingy on cost.

    But even before this, business travel has been diminished. I've been a part of planning for a particular conference in the fall. It usually has a lot of European presenters and lots of meetings among international companies. There's been a bit of a scramble because most of the people that were expected to speak are not going to travel to the US. Our company is spending a bit more to send people over to key clients in Europe near that time to replace the typical meet up at the conference. People were already nervous about Trump's ICE enough to declare the US to not be approved for business travel.

    International tourism is just being screwed all over the place.

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  • [–] 84 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    Still won't protect you from being whisked off the street, sent to an internment camp for months, then being deported to a 3rd country, and being banned from ever coming van back to the US.

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  • [–] 66 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    My trip to the USA in 2016 was one of the most harrowing, dehumanising, and humiliating experiences of my life. And I'm talking specifically about the actual journey, i.e. after the already lengthy, painful process of acquiring a visa.

    They treated me like a terrorist. I had to be escorted by 2 armed big dudes around the airport, and they flipped their shit when I reached for my phone to tell my brother it'd be a while before I can come out (just so he wouldn't worry.) They went through my bag and were handling everything SUPER gently, asking if it was "safe" for them to touch it.

    They then confiscated my passport, walked off, and literally never returned it to me. I spent hours asking various members of airport staff what to do because I was screwed. Thankfully, eventually one of them found it in a drawer and gave it back to me.

    I was a minor BTW. I have had no desire to repeat the experience since.

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  • [+] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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    [–] 61 points 1 year ago

    I’m sure this will do wonders for the already declining US tourism industry.

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  • [–] 58 points 1 year ago (17 children)

    Boy am I looking forward to the World Cup next year. If things keep trending this way it will be one of the most enjoyable cluster fucks I'll have ever witnessed.

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  • [–] 86 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Here’s a reminder that the Olympics was held in Nazi-controlled Berlin, and a team of 18 black athletes from the US thoroughly trounced Hitler’s “master race” talking points by sweeping the medals.

    The black athletes then had to return to the US, where segregation was still the norm; many of them struggled to support themselves afterwards, because racism kept them from being hired into any decent jobs.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Anecdotally, they were treated better in Nazi Germany than 30's America.

    Really tells it all.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Anecdotally, they were treated better in Nazi Germany than 30’s America.

    Because they were US citizens. While the US has some pretty... ugly history. If you think Nazi Germany would have treated a random black citizen better than what they got in the US you are absolutely delusional. The only reason they weren't sent to camps with the Jews was because the population was deemed too insignificant to be worth the effort.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_black_people_in_Nazi_Germany

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Nice track record at FIFA

    Russia 2018

    Qatar 2022

    USA 2026

    Morocco 2030

    KSA 2034

    2038?

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  • [–] 42 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, that's gonna do wonders for tourism. Another 1000,- for a family of four.

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  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    So as a Canadian here is yet another reason to never visit the newest Oblast USA...

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  • [–] 35 points 1 year ago

    Even if they would pay me $250, I wouldn't want to go there.

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  • [–] 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    As well as spend 5-50000 days in custody anywhere from seatac to the Everglades concentration camp to the el Salvador concentration camp. The US occupied Guantanimo Bay facility is also on the table, though camp X ray is unlikely to be available

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago

    For every traveler who does pay the $250 fee, this is enough to scare away a dozen more who would've spent hundreds or thousands. Good job!

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago

    ha ha

    There it is. No one is exempt from getting grifted by the orange felon.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago

    You can just use that $250 to get pegged by an escort and have a better experience.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago

    See - everyone who's new to the exciting play-by-play of a trump administration - this is how it goes. They do something like this - so boneheaded, so outrageous, so confoundingly incompetent you think, "That's the stupidest thing there ever could be" and then tomorrow - NOPE! New stupidest thing!

    We did this already. It was four years of fucking insane hell. Many, many people died.

    We're doing it again. I guess we're the stupidest motherfuckers to ever be.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    do not come to the united states, you safety, dignity, and sense of self, is not protected by the trump administration

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  • Oh, sure it is. Now with the premium subscription for only a one time fee of $5mil you can be assured your safety is in the rights hand. At least until the goal post moves again. Oh, and we both know you can just buy dignity now, right? Right?

    So cooked.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    Department of tourism doing the lords woke. Braise jeasus.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I believe Netanyahu has nominated Trump for the "Tourism person of the year" award

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    Well that ought to kill any tourist travel to the US. Way to go drumpf! /s

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  • Goddamn the fee gets a fucking inflation adjustment and we're still on 2009 federal minimum wage? This fucking country.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    I don't call it the 'land of the fee and home of the easy payment plan' for nothing.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    ...do you continue to visit the uncle who has willingly covered himself in shit and lit his house on fire?...really?...

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    Getting handled like a piece of shit at customs, having to pay an outrageous amount of money for the privilege, and can be "taken care of" by the US GeStaPo. Being a foreign tourist in the US is now more like masochism instead of a relaxing holiday.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Apparently it's supposed to be refundable when you leave, but also the government is not expecting to issue many refunds?

    I'm surprised that such a tourism-crushing policy was not in the news (or at least not in the news that I saw) before the bill passed.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    Why yes, I'd love to pay an additional $250 fee to be shipped off to a gulag.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    How many countries are going to add reciprocal fees? I hope all of them 😕

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    People still want to go to the USA?

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    The headline is misleading.

    1. It's a refundable deposit
    2. It's not for all travelers but only for those on non-immigrant visas. Most notably, does not apply for ESTA travelers
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