Have money, won't travel

politico.com

By a greater than 2-1 ratio, in worldwide surveys, international travelers consistently cite the United States as the world’s single most unfriendly destination.

The sticker shock that creates anguish when U.S. residents reach for their wallets as they arrive nowadays at many foreign destinations works in reverse when Europeans and most other visitors land in the United States.

With the euro, the British pound and the Canadian dollar at near-record highs against the U.S. dollar, America, for the average visitor, is a travel bargain.

So why aren’t more international travelers flocking to the United States for business and pleasure, to take advantage of low prices in hotels and shopping malls, among the manifold consumer-oriented attractions of the world’s largest economy?

The answer, perhaps, can be found in another statistic that currency traders ignore as they deal with the dollar’s ongoing slide. By a greater than 2-1 ratio, in worldwide surveys, international travelers consistently cite the United States as the world’s single most unfriendly destination.

In addition, along with parts of Africa and the Middle East, the United States is considered to have some of the most burdensome entry paperwork and some of the frostiest border officials.

As a result, according to the Discover America Partnership, “America is in the midst of a travel crisis,” with “billions in visitor spending and tax revenue at stake.”

The partnership, formed last year by leaders of the travel and tourism industry, reflects its mounting concern over a steep decline in global public attitudes about America.

To combat this unfavorable trend, industry leaders last week mounted their second-annual Travel Leadership Summit, sponsored jointly by the Travel Industry Association and the Travel Business Roundtable.

To get their message across to members of Congress and their staffs, they held 25 regional dinners, followed by one-on-one meetings on Capitol Hill. Most of the participants were “lobbyists for a day” who saw lawmakers from their home states.

“We have made great strides in improving our entry processes. But these efforts won’t fully pay off until the U.S. implements a nationally coordinated program to communicate these changes to world travelers,” said Jay Rasulo, head of the association and chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

The industry received a down payment on its goals in August when President Bush signed into law an expansion of the visa-waiver program — now being slowly implemented — while further tightening security through an airport exit tracking system. Currently, 27 nations, fewer than 15 percent of the nations in the world, qualify for the program.

The problem, however, may be deeper than one that can be solved by overcoming the continued hostility of the Department of Homeland Security to the bill and enacting a further round of travel-enhancing legislation.

“My wife visited Paris shortly after 9/11,” Douglas Palmer, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the five-term mayor of Trenton, N.J., recalled in an interview.

“When she went to a restaurant and said she was an American, they would not let her pay for her meal. Now all that goodwill has been lost. America is reviled abroad. I’m afraid that it may not be possible to change those perceptions until after we hold another [presidential] election.”

The travel industry believes it cannot afford to wait that long. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, overseas travel to the United States has plummeted by 17 percent.

Through 2005, this amounts to an estimated opportunity cost of $94 billion in lost spending and 194,200 lost jobs, according to industry estimates.

Fresh Commerce Department data show that every region of the country feels the pain. Since Sept. 11, Boston is down 25 percent; Miami, 33 percent; Chicago, 21 percent; Los Angeles, 29 percent; and Honolulu, 22 percent.

The industry’s proposed solution to its problems — and its chief lobbying goal — is the pending Travel Promotion Act of 2007.

The bill, which the Senate Commerce Committee approved in June with bipartisan support, is slowly but steadily gathering co-sponsors on both sides of the Capitol.

If enacted, the legislation would create a nonprofit Corporation for Travel Promotion and establish the Office of Travel Promotion within the Commerce Department, headed by a high-ranking undersecretary for travel promotion.

Industry leaders note that nearly every developed country in the world runs a nationally coordinated travel promotion program — except the United States. In 2006, Greece topped the list with a $151 million program, followed by Mexico ($149 million), Malaysia ($118 million) and Australia ($113 million).

The new public-private partnership would be comprised of a 15-member board, with both federal and state representation, as well as directors from the educational and travel worlds.

One major goal: correcting “misperceptions overseas over U.S. travel policies.”

In some minds, however, having to wait 100 days or longer for a U.S. consular official to issue a tourist visa may not qualify as a “misperception.”

So another goal of the legislation is to have the new undersecretary work with the “secretary of Homeland Security and State Department to improve the entry and departure experience for international visitors and promote travel into and within the country.”

The bill authorizes the partnership to borrow $10 million from the Treasury in the next year to meet its startup costs but requires the money to be paid back by 2012.

Depending on the amount the partnership can raise from industry sources, up to $100 million in federal matching funds would become available annually for a newly established Travel Promotion Fund.

To hold U.S. taxpayers harmless, the fund would be financed by a $10 user fee, to be imposed on arriving international travelers under an expanded visa waiver program.

“We need to brand this great country of ours,” Palmer told the assembled amateur lobbyists before they fanned out across Capitol Hill to promote their cause.

Wearing his hat as president of the mayor’s conference, he further promised to convene a round-table discussion next spring with the surviving presidential candidates to ask them, “What are you going to do about the red tape” that continues to make the United States the world’s most unattractive tourist destination?

Printable Version | published Oct 03, 2007

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