Trump’s ban would cost $18.4 billion

London: Donald Trump’s suggested ban on all Muslims entering the US would cost the country as much as $18.4 billion (Dh67.5 billion) in tourism spend, new research has shown.

The move would lose the country £215 million from British Muslim visitors alone.

It has now emerged that his proposal, which Trump said was temporary so “[the United States’s] representatives can figure out what is going on”, will cost dearly, with the figure estimated at as much as $18.4 billbion, not accounting for the necessary overhaul to border infrastructure to implement such a plan.

In 2013, just over a million Middle-Eastern tourists visited the US, spending on average $6,000 each (incidentally, $2,000 more per head than the average European traveller). This totalled a Middle-Eastern spend of $6.8 billion.

Given that there are a number of predominantly Muslim countries outside of the Middle East – Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia – this figure was scaled up to represent Trump’s total ban on Muslim travellers, creating a total of $18.4 billion.