President aims to boost travel

Last week, President Barack Obama delivered a speech aimed at drawing attention to the power and importance of the travel industry to the U.S. economy. He issued an executive order, calling for the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Interior to create a task force to develop and implement strategies to encourage travel within and to this country, which, in turn, would create jobs.

Travel organizations, hotel companies and destination marketing organizations lauded the president for the speech. In a statement Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said, “The President’s timing couldn’t be better. U.S. Travel will immediately engage the administration on policies that can benefit our country and all aspects of the travel community. Among our objectives will be for our government to pursue concrete actions to increase international travel, business travel, participation in meetings and conventions, and leisure travel throughout America,” he added.

The president also called for visa reform, which would make it easier for international travelers to enter the country. By executive order, he’s tasked the Departments of State and Homeland Security to interview at least 80 percent of non-immigrant visa applications in three weeks and expand the Visa Waiver Program.

Hotel companies and convention and visitors bureaus also rallied in support of the president’s move. “We’re thrilled with the President’s announcement to augment efforts to reform our visa and entry systems to allow more people to experience the United States,” said Bill Marriott, Marriott International chairman and CEO, in a statement. A study last year by Oxford Economics revealed that visa restrictions kept 116,000 international travelers from attending events in the United States. NYC and Company, the city of New York’s official tourism marketing agency, also issued a statement regarding President Obama’s reforms. It said: “We believe visa reform measures have the ability to create over one million new jobs nationwide and generate billions more in revenue, and applaud the President’s call to accelerate and expand visa issuing and processing in emerging global markets to achieve these goals.” New York City was the nation’s No. 1 tourist destination in 2011 with more than 50 million visitors.

Like New York’s, Las Vegas’ tourism leaders want faster visa processing. “In some instances, there are business people who want to attend important trade shows but the process has made it quite prohibitive,” MGM spokesman Gordon Absher told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The announcement today is going to help that.”