How a Travel Boycott Really Hurts

If you live in the western world, especially Canada or the USA, you will be aware of news reports that stress the impact of Canadian Snowbirds cancelling their trips to Florida and Arizona during Canada's snowy wintertime.

The reports often include a dollar figure that sounds like "The USA will lose Thirty-five billion dollars this winter because Canadians are choosing to fly to Central or South America, or to Europe". A Balanced Report will then tell you that Canada will gain Twenty billion dollars in USA citizens checking out Canada. Add the two figures and your conclusion is that the trade deficit – Trump's main claim to fame – has increased by fifty-five billion dollars.

Well, Boo-hoo!

If you think that fifty-five billion dollars is a lot of money, then consider this: When Canadians travel to their condominium, or shared house in St Petersburg (Florida) or Melbourne (Florida) or Sarasota (Florida) they fill up with gas there, eat out, and chat in the line-up in the supermarket. That means that on a daily basis, Canadians and USA citizens chat with each other, and it is a great way to bond. Some Canadians have been building up relationships with firm friends in Florida for more than twenty years.

The same thinking must apply to Swedes and Norwegians who visit the Black Sea coast; Danes who visit Spain, and the English who block the museum aisles and corridors in France and Italy. When you break your annual habit of chatting, your relationship weakens. And every new wrinkle becomes an annoying itch.

It's not the fifty-five billion dollars this year, nor the trillion dollars imbalance over the next fifty years that counts. It's the wariness between nations. Human memory is long, and I mean, just among living humans. Until the day they died, my mother and my father preferred The Germans over The French because "The Germans put up a good fight (and lost), but the French quit/retreated/gave in when the first shot was fired". This puzzled me; I mean, weren't the Germans our enemies; the French our allies?

The same thinking must apply to any national-pairs who quit playing tennis with each other; or soccer; or swimming. Once that emotional break takes place, it can be there for one or more generations. Mum and dad will return from Spain raving about the seafood. Their children will remember Spanish seafood, and the grandkids will remember Spain. And yes, the children of those Grandkids will be brought up to believe that "the place to receive a warm welcome is Spain" Or Costa Rica or Chile. Or Greece.

It is possibly as permanent as a species break, brought about by a landslide or by a flooding river.

Get used to it.

Search