While the US Travel Association revelled in its 55th annual IPW trade show in Los Angeles last week that welcomed 5,700 attendees from 70 countries (among them close to 150 Canadians and a 20% increase over 2023), the tourism organization nevertheless bristled at current tourism metrics for international travel to the US it says are caused in part by self-inflicted wounds – ones that can and should be overcome.
“As strong as the (IPW) show is we, we have challenges with travel into the US and we need to acknowledge them and figure out what we’re going to do about them,” declared USTA president and CEO Geoff Freeman.
“The US remains the word’s most desired nation to visit, but at the end of 2019, we had 79 million visitors internationally; at the end of 2023 we had 67 million international visitors – only 84% of pre-pandemic levels,” he said.
And he noted that the US racked up a $50-billion travel trade deficit last year, but a US$12-billion surplus before the pandemic.
“So, we have serious problems on the international travel trade side we have to resolve,” he continued.
Some of the issues – such as the strength of the US dollar and limitations on over-flying Russian airspace (a major deterrent to attracting Asian visitors to the US) – are beyond the control of the travel industry, he acknowledged.
But there are plenty of problems that can be overcome, he said – like reducing excessively long wait times for visas and delays at customs; eliminating travellers having to rescreen their bags when connecting upon arrival in the US; and fixing an air traffic control system that is challenged to meet demand – all of them constraints on what he says should be a national goal to be “nothing short of No. 1 in terms of visitor arrivals, visitor spend, and visitor experience.”
Freeman cited examples such as Mexican visitors having to wait an average of over 800 days to get a travel visa to the US, and 600 days for Colombians. At the same time, Brazilians have seen visa wait times reduced from 500 days to 21 days, he said, observing, “It shows us it can be done. When the State Department uses its ingenuity, gets creative, and puts resources in the right place, this problem can be solved. But it’s been going on for far too long.”
Freeman said his association has challenged the administration to set a goal of achieving 30-days-or less wait times across the globe.
Customs
Also, improving an all-too-common situation the requires international travellers, when they do arrive, to sometimes wait for over two hours to get through customs after spending many hours on flights. “There’s nothing more predictable than when planes are going to land,” Freeman fumed. “We can staff appropriately; we can use technology; we can demonstrate commitment to addressing these issues.”
Another massive inconvenience that discourages travellers is a second round of bag screening when connecting upon arrival in the US.
“There are solutions that we are setting out to solve,” Freeman said. “We know that there are other countries around the world that realize that you have to make significant changes, that you have to realize that it is a competitive environment to attract travellers. They’re doing things – whether it’s Canada, the UK, Turkey… to attract travellers away from the United States. They’re looking to those countries where we have long visa wait times, they’re looking at opportunities to allow people to keep their shoes on or keep liquids in their bags when they go through security screening.
“It’s these types of things that are going to make those countries more competitive and steal travellers from the United States.”
To that end, Freeman says US Travel is doing its part, having created the Commission on Seamless and Secure Travel earlier this year to put forward ideas that the government can adapt to “make the US more competitive and get its share of international travel.”
And even with some US senators currently advocating limits on biometric screening technology at some US airports – a move that would “set the industry back decades,” according to critics – Freeman said he is “cautiously optimistic that the administration and others in government are waking up and heeding our call to address these issues…
“Achieving travel growth,” he concluded, “will require a sustained focus by government and industry to address frictions and improve the process for travellers.”
And to stop shooting itself in the foot.