Tourists Finding It's a Big World After All

[IJ Reilly]

Security restrictions and the U.S. role in Iraq are keeping foreigners away, tourism officials say.

WASHINGTON — Democrats and liberal academics have been complaining for years that President Bush's foreign policy has turned the United States into an international pariah.

Now they have an unexpected ally: Disneyland.

The international travel business is thriving everywhere — except in the United States, whose share of global tourism is plummeting in step with America's image around the world.

The nation's tourism industry says hostility toward the U.S. role in Iraq has kept foreigners out of the United States in droves, and security restrictions designed to keep the United States safe from terrorists are unnecessarily restrictive and stoking anti-Americanism worldwide.

In an effort to change that, representatives of the travel industry — as large as the Disney Co. and as small as the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau — are converging on Washington today to launch the Discover America Partnership, which aims to restore some of the billions of dollars in international tourism that the U.S. lost in the first half of this decade.

"Tourism is booming around the world, and we're not participating in it," said Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. He also heads the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, a group of 14 industry executives that works closely with the Commerce Department.

The board told the department last week that the United States had lost billions of dollars and millions of jobs as its overall share of foreign travel fell from 9% to 6% from 2000 to 2005.

Los Angeles — second to New York in the number of foreign visitors — suffered a decline as well, with more than 3.5 million international tourists in 2000 and 2.5 million five years later, according to Commerce Department statistics.

Driving the drop are tensions surrounding the Iraq war, terrorism and difficult U.S. relationships with some countries. Between 2000 and 2006, surveys by the Pew Research Center showed a plunge in the percentage of people holding favorable opinions of the United States: from 83% to 56% in Britain, 78% to 37% in Germany, 50% to 23% in Spain and 77% to 63% in Japan.

Then there are the security restrictions put in place after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Tourism executives shake their heads at the thought of Indians who have to wait up to 100 days for a U.S. travel visa. They tell of Brazilians who must travel hundreds of miles to one of the four facilities in Brazil where, for $100, they apply in person for a visa.

"Many legitimate potential international visitors now deliberately avoid travel to the U.S. due to real and perceived barriers to entry," said the Travel and Tourism Advisory Board.

...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tourism13sep13,1,4933944.story

[Ugg]

The price we pay for Fortress America ™ is a lot greater than most people realize.

[Chundles]

It's only annoying when people don't do the right thing. I had no problems getting in and out of the states last time. Mind you, being able to do a full on ocker accent helps - it's funny that an accent we despise here opens so many doors there.

[skunk]

It's only annoying when people don't do the right thing. I had no problems getting in and out of the states last time. Mind you, being able to do a full on ocker accent helps - it's funny that an accent we despise here opens so many doors there.You do have the advantage of being pink.

[Chundles]

You do have the advantage of being pink.

Pink? Mate, I see so little of the sun I'm closer to pale blue. Take my shirt off and you can see my heart like a newborn fish.

[adroit]

Pink? Mate, I see so little of the sun I'm closer to pale blue. Take my shirt off and you can see my heart like a newborn fish.


I thought I was the only one

[takao]

well not only brazilians have to drive hundred of miles to get a visa ... it's like that pretty much everywhere where there are no biometrical information in the passport... and you have to arrange it through a costly phone number ( 3-5€ a minute) when you have the "personal interview"
oh and every person needs a visa & passport ... even babies ... having your children written in your passport isn't enough for the US
for a family of 4 with 2 no passport children that's what ? 2 new passports for the kids (= 200€) + 4 visas (= 300-400 €) makes combined 500-600... nice extra cost isn't it ... even without the passports it's plenty


and even then you get treated like a criminal when entering the US while meanwhile the fingerprints scanned at the arriving US airport aren't even compared with non US databases since the _US_ refused to cooperate ...

that means somebody, which for example the german/austrian police is looking for, might enter without a problem


and that aside you might get refused entry anyway like it happened to a girl from my school:
"your passport is fake, you are not allowed to enter, take the next plane home" without further explanation


it should be no surprise that a alot of europeans rather make holidays inside europe/turkey/north-africa etc. where it's not only cheaper but much more easier for traveling


at least the US isn't the only one having problems *cough* Isreal *cough*

edit: and it's only going to get a worse since a lot of eastern european countries are becoming more and more popular for holidays even more so when they become members of the Schengen treaty and/or adopt the euro... i just have to look at the hordes of people traveling to hungary or chez republic the last years

[Ugg]

edit: and it's only going to get a worse since a lot of eastern european countries are becoming more and more popular for holidays even more so when they become members of the Schengen treaty and/or adopt the euro... i just have to look at the hordes of people traveling to hungary or chez republic the last years

That is true, however, Dubrovnik isn't San Francisco and Budapest isn't Boston. The inherent appeal remains despite the difficulties in getting here. Some people aren't deterred at all while others are not willing to spend the money and time necessary and I don't blame them.

It's cost the US airline industry quite a lot as many Europe bound flights from South America used to transit the US. Now with the cost and hassle of a transit visa, airports like Cancun are seeing a huge uptick in flights due to people wanting to avoid the transit costs of the US. Much less the threat, real or imagined of flying on a US flagged carrier.

[mkrishnan]

This is really a lot like the golden arches theory. Global businesses are *the biggest* fans of peace and stability in the world. Of course they are. Every war kills their customers, future or present. And cold hostility situations with embargoes and so on hurt them too. Who wants that?

[zimv20]

its overall share of foreign travel fell from 9% to 6% from 2000 to 2005.
!!!!!

[xsedrinam]

I don't have access to the LA Times article link, so this is just from what's printed. Does it mention what specific agenda items they plan to address while in DC? MPRS (Marketable Public Relations Strategy) will have about as much long term effect and short term impact on MFPS (Misguided Foreign Policy Spin) as toothlessly gumming the devil.

[IJ Reilly]

Pink? Mate, I see so little of the sun I'm closer to pale blue. Take my shirt off and you can see my heart like a newborn fish.

Ah, so that's the glow I see on the western horizon.

[IJ Reilly]

I don't have access to the LA Times article link, so this is just from what's printed. Does it mention what specific agenda items they plan to address while in DC? MPRS (Marketable Public Relations Strategy) will have about as much long term effect and short term impact on MFPS (Misguided Foreign Policy Spin) as toothlessly gumming the devil.

Here's the rest of the article. Not much in the way of specifics, I'm afraid.

A survey in June by the Travel Industry Assn., an advocacy group for the tourism business, found that 77% of travel agents worldwide thought the United States was more difficult to visit than other countries.

"We're not a welcoming country," said Geoff Freeman, executive director of the Discover America Partnership. "Most countries ask people to come visit them. We have more of a fortress appearance."

That will become even stronger in January, at least for travelers in the Western Hemisphere, when the U.S. plans to require passports from everyone — including Americans — who enters by air or sea from another country in this hemisphere. In 2008, that is to include those who return by land and are used to showing only a driver's license or a similar form of identification after a quick trip across the border into Canada or Mexico.

America's loss of market share in international travel has almost exactly offset the growth in the number of international tourists. According to the Commerce Department, the number of foreigners who entered the United States last year — more than 49 million — was 1.5 million fewer than the total in 2000, before the terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.

But as the international tourism pie has grown in overall size, the U.S. slice has gotten smaller.

The Travel and Tourism Advisory Board estimates that the U.S. travel industry has lost $286 billion compared with what it would have taken in had the United States maintained its all-time high market share — 9.6%, achieved in 1992.

The industry's profits are not the only things that have suffered.

Three studies early last year by the market research firm GMI found that foreigners who had visited the United States held more favorable opinions of this country and its people than did those who had not.

"This demonstrates that the U.S. travel and tourism industry has an important role to play in improving the image of the U.S. abroad," the Travel Industry Assn. concluded.

Disney's Rasulo, in his capacity as chairman of the Travel Industry Assn., is spearheading the Discover America Partnership.

Its goals, he said, are to achieve a more comfortable balance between the nation's security needs and its interest in foreign tourism; to organize a national campaign to market the United States as an international tourist destination; and to gain a voice for the tourism industry when the government considers policies that would affect travel.

Rasulo suggested the possibility of government funding of tourism promotion, possibly in the form of an exit tax on foreigners as they leave the United States.

He said Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez had agreed to represent the travel industry in discussions with other agencies, such as the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

"Other countries have publicly supported efforts to sell themselves," Rasulo said. "By and large, we have abandoned the task of marketing America."

[xsedrinam]

Here's the rest of the article. Not much in the way of specifics, I'm afraid.
Thank you. It's the last phrase, "Other countries have publicly supported efforts to sell themselves," Rasulo said. "By and large, we have abandoned the task of marketing America.", which more or less confirms my doubts in upgrading to "cautiously optimist".

[Desertrat]

Everybody got their passports so they can come back from a day-trip to Canada or Mexico, next year?

'Rat

[IJ Reilly]

Everybody got their passports so they can come back from a day-trip to Canada or Mexico, next year?

'Rat

I've had a passport since I was a teenager. But I can tell you a lot of people are going to get blind-sided by this new requirement. Last summer we went on an Alaska cruise, all ports in the US except for the ship's final port of call, Vancouver, BC. We were bussed straight from the cruise terminal to the airport for our flights home. Along the way our documents for re-entry into the good old USA were checked. One woman without a passport had an unacceptable copy of her birth certificate and was told this would not be good enough. She was frantically making cell phone calls on the bus trying to find someone at home who could help her scare up something more acceptable. I never did find out what happened to her.

[zimv20]

the border crossing where i most felt like a criminal was going from hungary to romania, at 3 in the morning, up near the ukraine, in 1993.

until i flew back from heathrow last summer, through raleigh. if that's how they're treating citizens, i can't imagine how foreigners must feel. and now with all 10 fingers printed. sheesh.

[mactastic]

the border crossing where i most felt like a criminal was going from hungary to romania, at 3 in the morning, up near the ukraine, in 1993.

until i flew back from heathrow last summer, through raleigh. if that's how they're treating citizens, i can't imagine how foreigners must feel. and now with all 10 fingers printed. sheesh.
Hell, you're lucky they decided to allow you back in. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/26/LODI.TMP)

Apparently they don't have to.

[zimv20]

Hell, you're lucky they decided to allow you back in. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/26/LODI.TMP)

probably just an oversight. i may be visiting england again in a few months, so they'll have another shot at it. kind of like kicking out the bass player by breaking up the band and reforming without him.

[Ugg]

probably just an oversight. i may be visiting england again in a few months, so they'll have another shot at it. kind of like kicking out the bass player by breaking up the band and reforming without him.

I´m seriously thinking of flying out of Canada the next time I go to Europe. I just don´t see the point of supporting such an oppressive system.

[pseudobrit]

I´m seriously thinking of flying out of Canada the next time I go to Europe. I just don´t see the point of supporting such an oppressive system.

I'm thinking of flying out of TO to BC next time I want go to L.A.