Trump and my beloved small multiples

Today’s ‘The Goody I found’ (TGIF) is once again about Trump and the effects of his erratic government actions on tourism to the USA.

A month ago I wrote a post here about Treemaps and Trump’s tariffs.

On LinkedIn it had very few ‘impressions’ compared to my normal numbers. It’s a shame really, as I wrote about treemaps – an interesting chart type. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t write about Trump’ was my first thought.
But no, probably the links out of Linkedin were to blame. I won’t do that again but I will continue to write about Trumps erratic policies …

I love small multiples: small, identical charts that show one or more key figures across one dimension – business units, product groups, ….

The example below is a highlight from the Financial Times by John Burn-Murdoch:

A normalised key figure – change of visitors compared to previous year in % – by country over 2 years – with the Trump era highlighted.
The message is quite impressing: Travel to the United States for Europeans appears much(!) less popular year-over-year. There is a really steep drop since Trump began. Interesting how this will impact the profits of Lufthansa and other airlines, which just invested in US-travel.
Besides problems with their ordered planes by Boeing.

I like small multiples so much because they provide context. The message is immediately clear, but I can also delve deeper and analyse the trend more closely in comparison.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see the YOY change from Canada, Mexico – or even Greenland – next to it … 😊

I prefer small multiples to a ‘spaghetti chart’ that shows all the lines in one diagram … and you?
 
Have a nice weekend,
 
Lars

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