Posted on 01/28/2007 12:47:58 AM PST by Aussie Dasher
THE US Government and private sector are launching a massive effort to reshape America's image for foreign visitors amid concerns that tightened security measures have made the country inhospitable.
The campaign comes as the number of visitors to the United States is just getting back to the levels prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, but with the US share of the multi-trillion-dollar global travel market shrinking.
Government and business leaders argue that the United States needs to fix real and perceived barriers to foreign visitors or risk losing billions of dollars in tourism revenues.
The United States welcomed some 49 million international travellers in 2005, ranking third behind France and Spain, according to a report prepared for the Commerce Department. But even as global travel is increasing, more people are choosing other destinations and the US market share has been on the decline.
"At a time when other countries have become better-funded, more co-ordinated and sophisticated in their efforts to attract international visitors, the US still lacks a national strategy to compete,'' said a study prepared by the US Commerce Department's Travel and Tourism Advisory Board.
"This situation puts the US at a distinct competitive disadvantage in efforts to attract world travel.''
The panel is seeking input for "a national strategy to compete for international visitors''.
Comments are being solicited until February 9 on "making it easier for people to visit by balancing hospitality with security'' and on "a nationally co-ordinated marketing program''.
The Government is expected to address issues of general tourism and visitors for medical, business, training, education or cultural reasons, according to the Commerce Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Unfriendliness?!!! Heck, we need to try to shed some pounds!
Why on earth would we want MORE foreigners to come here??
To drive down the price of landscaping.
You keep sendin' those hot Aussie gals up here to the states, and we'll keep bein' friendly.
The U.S. is unfriendly?? I'LL KICK THE ASS OF WHOEVER SAID THAT!!!!! Ummm, but, uh,,,,,I'll do it nicely.
;-) :-)
Smokers not welcome.
Never been through the TSA Super Secret Strip Search at an airport yet, have you?
Maybe I should convert. \sarc
When's the last time these f-*kheads checked the border? Or tried to close it? Hmmm?
Not to worry. Before long...as many more mosques go up and demands for the law of Sharia increase, great numbers of Europeans (those with the means), will flee. Australia, NZ, and the US will take them in.
What the article is talking about, and it's dead right, is security restrictions. Tourists are starting to avoid the US because of fear they will get entangled in some Homeland Security regulation they had no way of knowing about beforehand.
If we don't want to spend the rest of our lives taking our shoes off, we need to win this war decisively.
Yea, it's not enough that instead of wiping a culture out we have giving our life blood to save them. \rolling eyes
..the real mantra of the MSM always skewing facts, the real liberals constantly bashing Bush and America here and abroad. Past presidents making foreign speeches denouncing US policies, Hollywood depicting evil government and the brainless thinking it would be a garden of Eden without a strong defense and a capable military. Perceptions?..what did they expect?
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