By Linda Tancs

Few people may realize that in 2007 yet another pass was made in Congress to create an advertising fund to promote travel to the U.S.  The Travel Promotion Act of 2007 intended to address declining travel to the U.S. by earmarking $100 million generated by private industry and overseas visitors’ entry fees to facilitate understanding of America’s entry system and promote U.S. travel.  These activities would be undertaken by a non-profit corporation to be known as the Corporation for Travel Promotion.  Even fewer folks may recall that in 2002 a similar initiative fell flat.  Of course, the circumstances differ surrounding the introduction of a travel promotion bill in each of these years.  In 2002, the primary concern in developing the legislation was to allocate funds from a $100 million proposed reserve to the states to prop up tourism following 9/11.  In 2007, the bill’s sponsors blamed harsh border control and entry requirements for a drop in tourism despite a weak dollar.  There is certainly support for that position.  Just consider this portrayal of travel to the U.S. by travel columnist Matt Rudd from January’s Sunday Times in London:  “Nowhere else can a visitor expect such a spirit-crushingly frosty reception. A preflight e-interrogation, epic queues at immigration, thin-lipped questioning from aggressive border guards, and an outside chance of a rubber-gloved rectal rummage are all part of the fun.”  Ouch.  On the other hand, a recent report from the Federal Reserve claims that the one bright spot in America’s economy at the present time is–drum roll, please–foreign tourism!  So perhaps the bottom line is that, so long as schizophrenic assessments pop up among bureaucrats, any proposal to bring America’s promotional spend in line with that committed by our chief competitors will surely be doomed.

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