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Destination USA: Four Ways To Improve America’s Tattered Welcome Mat For Foreign Travelers

Locations in this article:  Los Angeles, CA New York City, NY

Destination USA: America's Tattered Welcome Mat For Foreign TravelersIs America a welcoming travel destination for foreigners?

Not so much, say some experts.

Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, sits down with Peter to discuss how we’re in the lost decade of U.S. travel and how his organization’s campaign to reform the U.S. visa system may fix the problem.

Peter Greenberg: The subject of the entire World Travel & Tourism Council’s conference is barriers––travel barriers and visa barriers. The United States is perceived by so many people around the world as inhospitable or unwelcoming. You’ve got numbers that are staggeringly bad that support that notion.

Roger Dow: The United States is such a hospitable country, but the outside world doesn’t perceive us that way. We’re actually calling the last 10 years the lost decade.  In the last 10 years, 60 million more people from non-U.S. countries traveled internationally and travel rose 40 percent.

American Flag - Not A Worldwide Symbol Of HospitalityHow many of those travelers came here? Inbound to the U.S. we’re up 400,000 travelers, which is only 1 percent. What’s wrong with this picture? The greatest country in the world only saw a 1 percent increase in travel when the rest of the world increased 40 percent.

PG: Something is glaringly off. Historically, so many people have aspired to come here. They grew up wanting to come here.

RD: Think of all the U.S. products and movies around the world, too. We hear over and over again from everyone in China and Brazil that the U.S. is the number one aspirational destination. Everybody wants to go to America.

PG: We export our culture, but we don’t import visitors.

RD: Tourism is great for the economy and job creation. These travelers come and stay 16 days, they spend $4,000 each, every visit.

PG: Starting back to September 11, you call it “the lost decade.” Explain that.

RD: After September 11, the travel industry came to its knees in one hour. Then the U.S. put many things in place for homeland security, including all sorts of rules and regulations from the TSA. One of the regulations had a big impact on travelers to the United States from a non-visa waiver country.

Learn more about what other countries require to visit: Visa Requirements For BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India, China

PG: What is a visa waiver country?

TSA Pat-Down: Welcome To The United States!RD: In 1986, the U.S. selected 27 countries where you didn’t need a visa to improve trade and business with those countries. They were mostly the major Western European countries: Germany, France, England, Japan, and Australia. In the last few years, we added nine countries to the waiver list, the biggest being South Korea.

For the hundreds of countries around the world not on the list, you had to apply for a visa, fill out paperwork, give information, etc. After September 11, the United States Congress passed a law requiring visitors to have a face-to-face interview with an American consulate officer.

PG: It takes weeks to get the interview and visa applicants have to wait hours in line. You can’t just show up and say “Hi, I’m here for my interview.”

RD: In areas like Brazil and China, some of the fastest growing economies in the world, you can wait up to 100 days for that interview. And the interview is 3 minutes. So you wait 100 days and 3 minutes.

PG: The interview is incredibly arbitrary, some might even say capricious.

RD: The information they gather on the person before the interview is most important. The interview is just for that gut feeling. Is this person is acting strange? Are they planning to stay in America? Are they a bad person?

The government tries to counter bad impressions through advertising: New Fees From Foreign Travelers To Fund USA Travel Promotions

PG: If I were doing the interview now, I wouldn’t let you in the country. The visa interview is a serious problem because we’re losing business. Travelers are preemptively making other choices. They hear others say, “I gave up” or “I’m not getting in,” and then they don’t even try.

American Passport - Don't Leave A Foreign Country Without ItRD: Beyond that, it hurts our public diplomacy. You take someone and you say wait 100 days to come to the place you’ve always wanted to come to. Then you make them stand outside for hours in the sun or the rain only to talk to them for 3 minutes and then say yes or no.

PG: That sounds like shopping in Beverly Hills.

RD: It’s more like a lounge in New York City. You stand in line and they take only the chosen few. The people who do get to travel here go back home feeling fabulous about us. We need more of that.

PG: You’re right. What’s the solution?

RD: The solution is simple. The US Travel Association came out with a blueprint of four things that could be done. First, we need to add resources where there is a need, like China and Brazil. Hire more people.

Second, we need to reduce wait times down to 10 days. The rest of the world is 10 days. It’s extremely doable.

Learn more about the US Travel Association’s ideas: U.S. Travel Association Releases New Aviation Security Blueprint: Will Government Listen?

Third, we need to be transparent. We need to tell people this is our goal and you can measure how we’re getting there.

Lastly, we should add other countries like Brazil and Chile to the Visa Waiver Program. When we added South Korea in the program, their travel to the U.S. went up 49 percent in one year. It’s magic.

PG: We should run customs and immigration as a business.

RD: If you owned this United States, you would hire 400 people. And it would result in thousands of legitimate travelers. These measures are not sacrificing security in any way. Someone waiting a hundred days or ten days doesn’t make a difference if they’re a security risk. It just makes them [regular travelers] inconvenienced and mad.

By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio.

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