Trump's becoming the Basil Fawlty of American tourism
Fat chance. As the world's witnessed with international sport over the decades, the notion that it and world events can be separated has proved historically risible, and now we witness overseas travel becoming markedly more politicised.
Nowhere is it more starkly illustrated than what appears to be the weaponisation of tourism for political purposes by the US Trump administration and its facilitators, who appear to be Googling overtime in search of any criticism of the president and his policies.
This article, and others I've written critical of US treatment of tourists under the Trump administration in my role as travel editor of the Herald and the Age, will likely render any visit by me to the States a risky proposition.
I'm not complaining. For me it's no loss, as it's still a wide, wonderful and mostly welcoming world out there, and word has it that our far more rational Canadian friends could do with a little antipodean love in the form of a holiday there.
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So forget about yours truly and consider the recent case of a reader of the Traveller title of the above publications.
Only a few hours before the departure of his flight earlier this month to visit his daughter in the States, Australian Bruce Hyland received notice from US immigration authorities that he would not be permitted to enter the country. This news came after earlier having been approved to visit.
'No reason for a cancellation was provided [for the decision to refuse entry],' Hyland writes in his Traveller letter, 'so one is in the Kafkaesque situation of having breached some official procedure, while having no way to appeal the decision or determine what that procedure could be.'
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