At Oyster, it’s always been our mission to take the guesswork out of your vacation by letting you know exactly what to expect before you arrive. But right now that goal feels more difficult than it ever has, because the world is a wholly unpredictable place. Sometimes it feels like a day doesn’t go by without news of another tragedy, from terrorist attacks to natural disasters, many of which impact the travel destinations we cover.
It’s understandable that many would-be travelers read the news and feel like they’d rather just stay home. But even though travel feels unsettling to many right now, we also believe that it has never been more important. To us, travel isn’t just about taking a relaxing break—it’s about seeing things from a new perspective. Whether that means traveling somewhere exciting and unfamiliar or socializing at the swim-up bar, we hope that travelers are encountering people from different places and hearing perspectives they wouldn’t otherwise have heard. Travel at its best teaches you to empathize, to listen, to imagine the world from someone else’s perspective. And our country and our world desperately need more of that understanding right now.
This has never been clearer than this weekend, when the president issued an executive order to temporarily ban citizens of seven Muslim countries from entering the United States. Our parent company, TripAdvisor, denounced this order as heartless and discriminatory, and against the principles that make our country great. At Oyster, we couldn’t agree more—and we think that such polarizing measures negatively impact our nation’s security, not improve it. We are proud that the Oyster office includes an incredibly diverse array of employees—including immigrants—and much of what has happened since Donald Trump was sworn in as president has struck a deeply personal chord with us.
At its core, Oyster.com has always been an opinion site—and if you read us, it’s because you value our perspective about travel and hotels. Travel and politics have always occasionally intersected, and that is certainly still the case, especially when the president of the United States is a hotelier. We’ve already reported on what impact Trump’s policies might have on tourism, and we’ll continue to weigh in on what his presidency means for travel and for the world. We do this because we still want to help you have the best vacation ever—and because we want as many people as possible to be able to travel, and to be able to do so safely.
If you have any thoughts you’d like to share, please write to us – as always, we value your perspective. And we hope you’ll continue to value ours.
Kelsey Blodget
Senior Executive Editor, Oyster.com
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