Balancing tourism and security
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Last month the president traveled to Disney World in Orlando to unveil a major new initiative to increase travel and tourism to the United States. There simply is no better advertisement for America and our best attributes -- freedom, free enterprise, diversity and natural beauty -- than having foreign visitors experience our country firsthand. From foreign heads of state to students to everyday people on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, visiting America builds respect for our ideals and bolsters our economy.
However, each traveler is not only an opportunity, but a potential security risk, as painfully demonstrated on 9/11.
Four years ago, the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee submitted a 50-page report to the departments of Homeland Security and State with more than three dozen major recommendations on how to facilitate travel while protecting our homeland. As the president prepares to unveil the next phase of this initiative, our recent track record demonstrates that Washington -- Democrats and Republicans -- can find common ground to safely welcome visitors to our country.
In just four years, a period that covers a Democratic victory for the White House and a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives, several major travel initiatives proposed by the SBODAC have come to fruition. These include:
• Launching of the first national travel promotion campaign, enacted by a bipartisan majority in Congress without use of taxpayer dollars;
• Establishment of an international "trusted traveler" program that has enrolled more than 1 million low-risk travelers from the United States and six foreign partners as well as the promising trusted traveler "pre-check" program run by the Transportation Security Administration;
• Expansion of the Visa Waiver Program, coupled with new security requirements for VWP countries and travelers;
• Implementation of secure identification requirements for travel within the Western Hemisphere; and
• Dramatic reductions in visa wait times in many emerging markets, such as China and India, due to increases in consular staffing and improved application processes.
However, these improvements have not yet translated into a major rebound in our share of the international travel market, which fell from 17 percent in 2000 to 12 percent in 2010. Legislation that would allow additional countries to be considered -- but not guaranteed -- for admission to the Visa Waiver Program would be a major bipartisan achievement.
Shifting resources within U.S. Customs and the Consular Service to tackle problematic airports and overseas posts also would mitigate widespread negative perceptions regarding visa wait times and long lines at U.S. airports. Most importantly, we need much more integrated planning to ensure that legitimate visitors who want to visit, study or conduct business in the United States can travel without having to plan months in advance.
Just as with free trade or open skies agreements, the United States must make travel part of our economic strategy to put Americans back to work. An increasingly mobile world population, particularly in the emerging middle classes in countries like Brazil, India and China, will not choose the United States by default -- we must compete for every legitimate traveler.
According to the U.S. Travel Association, last decade's decline in travel to the United States cost us more than $600 billion in lost traveler spending that would have supported more than 450,000 American jobs. Moreover, some visitors, such as buyers at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, are responsible for purchasing decisions that can determine whether a product line which might employ hundreds will be created in Chicago or Chennai.
The SBODAC wrote in 2008 that "our long-term success requires not only that we deter and detect determined adversaries, but also that we persuade millions of people around the globe of our ideals -- democratic freedom, private enterprise, human rights, intellectual pursuit, technological achievement."
The achievements of the past four years and the promise of the president's initiative give us hope that we have discarded the image of "Fortress America" to the history books.
First Published February 9, 2012 12:00 am
