Australian travel agents woke on 11 December to a wave of cancellations after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency formally proposed that visitors under the Visa Waiver Program must hand over five years of social-media activity, email addresses, phone numbers and biometric data when lodging an ESTA.
The measure—pursuant to a Trump executive order aimed at denying entry to people deemed to hold “hostile attitudes” toward the United States—will undergo a 60-day comment period but is expected to take effect before the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Australian arrivals to the U.S. had already slipped to 45,408 in November, barely half pre-pandemic levels; agents now predict a further double-digit decline, with clients re-routing conferences and incentive trips to Canada and Japan.
![Australians shun U.S. trips as new ESTA rules demand five-year social-media history]()
For business-travel managers the change is a compliance headache. Staff itineraries will need longer lead times, and communications teams must vet corporate social-media output that could be mis-read by U.S. border officials. Multinationals are also reviewing data-privacy exposure, because employees would effectively be surrendering third-party content in colleagues’ tagged posts.
Tourism Economics estimates that every 10,000 fewer Australian visitors costs U.S. hospitality operators US$32 million in direct spend. Conversely, Australian carriers such as Qantas could benefit if capacity is redeployed toward higher-yield Asian and European routes.
Canberra has so far offered only muted criticism, saying the U.S. has the sovereign right to set entry conditions. Civil-liberties groups argue the Albanese government should lodge a formal protest, warning that intrusive data grabs set an alarming precedent other countries may follow.
The measure—pursuant to a Trump executive order aimed at denying entry to people deemed to hold “hostile attitudes” toward the United States—will undergo a 60-day comment period but is expected to take effect before the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Australian arrivals to the U.S. had already slipped to 45,408 in November, barely half pre-pandemic levels; agents now predict a further double-digit decline, with clients re-routing conferences and incentive trips to Canada and Japan.
For business-travel managers the change is a compliance headache. Staff itineraries will need longer lead times, and communications teams must vet corporate social-media output that could be mis-read by U.S. border officials. Multinationals are also reviewing data-privacy exposure, because employees would effectively be surrendering third-party content in colleagues’ tagged posts.
Tourism Economics estimates that every 10,000 fewer Australian visitors costs U.S. hospitality operators US$32 million in direct spend. Conversely, Australian carriers such as Qantas could benefit if capacity is redeployed toward higher-yield Asian and European routes.
Canberra has so far offered only muted criticism, saying the U.S. has the sovereign right to set entry conditions. Civil-liberties groups argue the Albanese government should lodge a formal protest, warning that intrusive data grabs set an alarming precedent other countries may follow.
Source: The Guardian
