Thank you for clarifying banning vs. advising. It’s an important distinction. I’m surprised it didn’t’ happen sooner.
yeah, me, too. But frankly, I suspect these things are highly influenced by political reasons. (I realize that sounds so generic that it sounds conspiracy-laced.)
Why the U.S. never pulled back their ban on Europeans when their infection rates were lower than the U.S. is something I don’t get. I have several people who are engaged and haven’t been able to see their spouses, or my soon-to-be sister-in-law was unable to visit us in the states to help with my mom passing/attend her funeral/support the family. At that time, the rates where she lives in Germany and where I live in the U.S. (Colorado) were low.
I’ve stopped trying to figure out why some countries do things.
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Slightly ranty political stuff alert.
This might make me sound like a crank, but I honestly now believe that politicians are only in it for themselves and their friends / family and those people who will help them when they leave office.
I do not believe for a minute that either Donald Trump or Boris Johnson have any interest in or concern for the lives of ordinary people. I think both were motivated by ego, entitlement and greed.
I think Biden does have a concern for ordinary people. But American ordinary people (which is fair enough) and I don’t think he sees any advantage to himself politically, or to his electoral constituency, in lifting the ban. He has other stuff to worry about. It’s not a priority. It blows my mind that the US can survive without European visitors, but apparently it can. It’s totally unprecedented in the modern era.
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Honestly, and I’m not trying to offend, but I’ve never understood why UK visitors got deals to DW and why it was such a big deal for DW to promote their parks in your country. It wasn’t necessary. The US (and Canada) have plenty of people who visit DW, as we have seen this past summer. With international tourism being limited, Americans were, and still are, filling tourists spots in this country to the brim. From what I’ve read, the National parks have been over run. While I think EU tourists are appreciated, I don’t think our tourism economy is centered around them.
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I definitely see your point. But it must be wrong. Companies don’t run their businesses out of the goodness of their hearts. There must be an advantage to marketing WDW holidays to British people. Maybe we spend more per head. I know I do. I’m all about upcharge events.
There’s advantage to the US economy as a whole. The only way for a country to get richer is to trade with other countries. Something the US has done less and less of over the last decade. And China has done more and more of.
And right now, word is that WDW is basically a ghost town. For whatever reason, US nationals are not filling the parks. British nationals would be if they had the chance.
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My understanding is that Delta and the indoor mask mandate is what is keeping people away from DW at the moment. Along with schools starting here (my kids have been in school since August 18 and 19th.) Would you really come here right now with the situation in Florida as it currently is?
We have a trip scheduled for the week after Thanksgiving and I have heard that Disney hotels are not easy to come by at that time. I’m not planning on cancelling our trip and we have a 9 year old.
There may be reasons why they are advertising to the UK. It could be just another way to make money, as obviously there is some kind of demand. But it doesn’t appear to be needed by the company to stay afloat, so it isn’t necessary.
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Thing is, if you read the nuances you are each posting, you’re both right.
The US travel industry (and Disney, specifically) doesn’t NEED folks from outside the country right now. At the same time, allowing travel from outside the US might offer an advantage to the US economy. There are some caveats to that, however.
This is most definitely NOT true…but it definitely helps. Or CAN help, unless there is a huge trade deficit at play. On the other hand, if a company exports products to another country, and those profits go back to the originating country, it can actually suck money from the economy of the country the product is being sold in. (As one example.)
How does a country increase its own wealth without trade?
Population growth.
How does that make it richer?
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Increasing population drives continual and growing demand. Trade certainly increases growth rate, because of the larger population base to draw demand from. As a country’s birth rate stagnates, it must use trade, otherwise the economy slows and even shrinks.
But without trade, the size of the pie never changes. You have what you have and you can never have more of it. All you can do, surely, is just rearrange what you already have. Mostly by transferring it from the poor to the rich.
And the “we don’t need you right now” strategy is risky. It forces people to look for alternate options. They may find they prefer them.
While Europe has been locked out of the US, WDW has been making itself a less attractive destination. I’m not so sure that when WDW is allowed to reopen its doors to the world the world is necessarily going to flood back in again.
COVID has cost Disney — and the US — a huge amount of cash. It seems like some people think that this is fine. It can live without the rest of the world. I’m not so sure that’s going to work out.
The UK is trying a similar strategy. We told all our foreign workers we didn’t want them any more. Now we have a crisis in healthcare because we don’t have enough doctors and it takes a really long time to train new ones. We have a crisis in logistics. We don’t have enough lorry drivers and supermarket shelves are empty. We haven’t been replacing the ones we got rid of because COVID has stopped us training and testing them. We have a crisis in agriculture because we sent away all the hard-working foreigners who were willing to do unpleasant jobs for low wages. Our own citizens haven’t stepped up to take their place.
America First was not per se a dumb philosophy. America Only is.
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You seem to miss my point. You used an absolute statement about how the ONLY means for growth is trade. That is a fallacy. But I also agree with you that trade is a primary means of growth. Just not the ONLY means.
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Rather than sitting there crying like Snow White is MCO actually doing anything? Is it lobbying? Is it making an argument? Is the idiot governor of Florida doing anything, other than crashing the state into a brick wall?
WDW might be surviving (is it? it’s empty right now) without Brits, but MCO must be hurting.
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I haven’t missed it. I’ve disagreed with it. And you haven’t made your case. How exactly does the economy grow without trade with other countries? Increasing the birth rate doesn’t make a country richer. How can it? More workers can do more work, but they need to be paid. Where’s the money coming from?
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Money is an artificial construct. Where has all the money we have, globally, come from? Trade doesn’t create it out of thin air.
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I am going to say something shocking here. This “discussion” now has nothing to do with going to Universal at the end of September?
How about stopping this now? @missoverexcited
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Agreed.
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The amusement parks and national parks have had a huge advantage since the lockdown. They’ve been almost the only game in town. I know I normally wouldn’t have done 3 long-distance trips to an amusement park in a year. Also, Americans do go out of the country, and they haven’t been able to.
I have heard Scotland and Ireland are really hurting now. They’re experiencing the $2 bill phenomenon only in reverse.
This border lockdown has been nuts.
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