Will US effort to woo lucrative internationals finally pay off?

Here’s a well-known anecdote about international visitors getting visas to the US: The wait time is so legendary in some places that some British tourist officials once raised a banner in front of a US Embassy in India that said:
 

“Come to the UK  —   no line.”
 

One of the first goals of a new US organization  —   a first-ever effort to deal with attracting more worldwide visitors  —   will be to deal with that issue.  

The Corporation for Travel Promotion (CTP) is the group formed last year to promote the US to world visitors. Brand USA is the new organizational name and America’s first-ever global consumer brand. New initiatives were announced at the recent World Travel Market in London.

The US problems in this area are many but are also well-established.

In Brasilia, for example, the typical wait time for an interview is 105 days. Many large cities in fast-growing travel markets such as China, Brazil, and India, don’t even have visa processing locations. That means some people have to travel 1,000 miles or more for a three-to-five-minute interview.

The visa process became more complicated after the 9-11 attacks, when new laws required more scrutiny of people applying for US visas. But officials at the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which oversees visa applications for the State Department, say delays in rapidly industrializing nations have escalated. These involve countries such as Brazil where incomes are rising and more people are inclined to travel.

Why the US has steadily lost visitors in recent years as many other countries have added them is no mystery. HotelNewsNow.Com cites some obvious examples:

• The US has been losing market share to other nations due in part to a bloated visa process and the lack of a cohesive, unified marketing push.
• Brazil, China and India are the fastest-growing, highest-spending sources of overseas travel to the U.S., but the wait to even apply for a yearly visa can be 100 days or more.
• The US often shoots itself in the foot and a perfect example is while it remains the No. 1 dream destination for many Chinese, a larger percentage of tourists there instead choose France, where it’s much easier to get a visa. France last year captured 18 percent more Chinese visitors than the US.

According to the United States Travel Association, all of that needs to change, and fast.

“We’ve had significant barriers to travel, because of delays and customer service concerns about the visa process, leading to the inability of travelers to get a visa in a timely basis,” said Patricia Rojas, VP of government affairs for the US Travel Association.

Between 2000 and 2010, there was extensive growth in the (overseas) travel market, but the US was stagnant. The US share of the market actually dropped.

Other efforts will materialize in 2012 in the wake of the 2010 Travel Promotion Act, which created the first national travel promotion program, led by the new Corporation for Travel Promotion.

The entire world has been clamoring for larger slices of the ever-larger travel trip pie. So what is the US doing about it?

The USTA’s main efforts toward reform hinge on supporting new legislation in the US Capitol.

Among other goals, that would:

• Add more countries  —  particularly Taiwan, Brazil, Poland and Chile  —  to the 36 currently in the visa waiver program. That program allows visitors from a few countries to spend up to 90 days in the US without a visa.
• Legislation proposed by two US Senators would also greatly improve the US visa process, making it easier for meeting planners to attract international attendees to their events. The VISIT USA Act includes various reforms such as the creation of a premium visa process, whereby prospective visitors would pay a higher than normal visa processing fee in exchange for receiving a visa interview within three days of the request.
• The USTA is also seeking to improve the welcome experience at customs for international guests arriving at US airports. “We’ve had visitors get off an eight-hour flight, then wait 60 to 90 minutes to be processed, and that’s not the first impression we want to give them of the United States,” Rojas said.

 “By next spring, we expect to be in the market with advertising, earned media, promotional packages and a variety of other marketing tools to attract increased international visitation, to create jobs, grow exports and drive economic growth,” said Joel Secundy, the CTP’s VP of strategic outreach.

By David Wilkening