Last spring, as Donald Trump was locking up the Republican nomination for president, Forbes wanted to determine what impact his unprecedented and controversial campaign was having on the billionaire's brand and businesses. After all, no candidate, let alone president, had ever had such a complex web of holdings.  We teamed up with polling and strategic consulting firm Penn Schoen Berland to survey individuals with the financial means to frequent his high-end hotels and golf courses. The results suggested that the campaign was hurting the image of Trump's properties among the demographic that makes up his core clientele, with many more high-income respondents saying they would actively avoid a hotel or resort bearing his name than said they would actively seek out such properties.  Now that Trump has won the presidency, we again set out to take the temperature of wealthy consumers toward his brand. It is clear that choosing a hotel or resort remains a political act for a meaningful subset of the population. Compared to the spring survey, however, sentiment against Trump properties has thawed somewhat. Trump supporters have grown more positive about patronizing his businesses, while non-supporters have become less negative. Meanwhile, the groups' perceptions of each other has grown more polarized.  Graphic by Penn Schoen Berland  In the wake of the election, from Nov. 11-14, Penn Schoen Berland surveyed 500 U.S. residents with annual household incomes of at least $200,000 and found that 37% said they would actively avoid Trump-branded hotels or resorts. That's down from 45% in March. Overall 48% of respondents said they view Donald Trump "very" or "somewhat" unfavorably, down from 63% in March. Meanwhile, 41% said they view the president-elect very or somewhat favorably, up from 24% previously.  (For reference, exit polling on Election Day found 49% of voters earning $200,000 to $249,999 and 48% of those earning over $250,000 voted for Trump. Hillary Clinton took 48% and 46% of those groups, respectively.)  Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort. (Photo by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images)  Of the 37% of respondents who said they would actively avoid Trump properties, 82% were specifically turned off by his campaign. That's up from the 77% in the earlier survey. When asked why they would not be Trump patrons, they agreed with the statement: "Over the course of his presidential campaign, I have found Donald Trump to be an unwelcome and generally negative addition to the political and social arenas – and by not patronizing his business I would be demonstrating my opposition."  Ten percent of respondents who were actively avoiding Trump properties gave as their primary reason: "Trump properties have never fit my taste."  David James, a senior vice president at Penn Schoen Berland, posits that the rise in Trump's favorability numbers among the high-income people surveyed surveyed has to do with Republicans who supported other hopefuls in the primaries ultimately "coming home" to their party's candidate.  At the same time, James sees Trump voters going through a sort of reconciliation process: If I'm willing to vote for this person to be the most powerful person in the world, I might as well as stay at his hotel. Going forward, he says, bookings at Trump properties may become a proxy for how a well-off subset of the population views his performance as president.  However, only 10% of Trump supporters said they would make a point of staying at a Trump property--up from 7% in March. The overall "boycott ratio"--the proportion of people intending to avoid Trump proprieties compared to those intending to support them--declined from six-to-one to four-to-one.  With all that has happened since March--from Trump's vulgar talk about women to his upset defeat of Hillary Clinton--it may come as a surprise to many that anti-Trump sentiment seems to have plateaued, at least among the wealthy. The vitriol, however, has found a more troubling outlet: other American's with diverging points-of-view.  When asked how they would feel upon learning that another individual was supporting Trump's businesses, the percent of respondents in both camps indicating strong feelings intensified.  Graphic by Penn Schoen Berland  Among Trump supporters, 18% said they would feel "much more favorable" toward another person who supported Trump's businesses, up from 12% in March. Among Trump detractors, 34% said they would feel "much less favorable" toward a patron of Trump businesses, up from 30%. The survey did not ask how supporters and non-supporters would feel about people boycotting Trump businesses.  It remains too soon to say how Trump's business will weather his turn to politics. An early clue will be the extent to which Trump separates himself from The Trump Organization, his company, while running the country. He has said his children will take over, but a press conference promising more detail on how he will avoid conflicts of interest originally scheduled for Thursday was postponed until January.  What is clear is that Americans will never see Trump or anything bearing his name the same way again.  Nir Kossovsky, CEO of reputation consultancy Steel City Re, notes Trump has been telegraphing his views for a long time, most notably when he led a campaign to get President Barack Obama to prove he was born in the United States. Nevertheless, most people were able to separate the brand and properties from that side of the man. "The election process brought front and center what had been in the past a background brand element to Trump. It has created a well-defined notion of Trumpism, which is separate from the luxury brand of Trump. And yet, because there is the same man attached to both of them, it has resulted in heavy conflation of those two brand concepts," says Kossovsky.  "Trump’s hotels and resorts are emblematic of the man," notes Penn Schoen Berland in a report (see below) summarizing the survey findings. "It follows that for many, deciding whether or not to patronize one of his properties has become a declaration of sorts – a self-edifying 'vote' either for or against Trump and all that he embodies."  A note on the survey:  The 500 survey respondents were fairly evenly divided in terms of political affiliation: 190 identified as Democrats, 197 Republicans, and 113 Independents. A total of 275 were men; 225 were women. Of the people surveyed, 71% said they were very likely or somewhat likely to select or influence personal travel for four or more people. Forty-two percent of those surveyed were somewhat or very likely to select or influence business travel for four or more people. The margin of error was 3.7 percentage points.
Fewer high-income Americans are intent on avoiding Trump hotels and golf courses than in March, according to a survey conducted for Forbes by Penn Schoen Berland, but the high percentage who still intend to vote with their patronage against the president-elect should be cause for worry at Trump HQ.