Posted on: Sunday, May 20, 2001
Travel industry lobbies for government support
Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. — The governments of Austria and France each spend more than $50 million a year promoting tourism in their countries.
The Mexican government spends $40 million. Even the government of tiny Albania spends more than $60,000.
The United States government, however, doesn't spend a cent selling the nation as a tourist destination.
In fact, the United States is the only major industrialized nation in the world whose government spends nothing on marketing tourism abroad. And that galls members of the U.S. travel industry.
"The competition you face from your counterparts in other countries is truly fierce and they have some extra help on their side," former Vice President Al Gore said at a Travel Industry Association of America conference in Orlando this month. "It's not entirely fair."
Some in the travel industry say the nation's market share in world tourism will steadily erode without promotional spending by the federal government.
Industry analysts estimate the United States' market share has already declined by nearly 25 percent in the past decade because of the opening of previously closed destinations such as China, Russia and eastern Europe.
The number of international visitors to the United States, however, continues to increase because more people overall are traveling. The United States had about 51 million visits last year, second only to France which had 74.5 million visits.
International travelers are seen by many as the key to growth for the U.S. tourism industry because the domestic market is considered mature — about 80 percent of Americans already travel.
International travelers are also desirable because they spend more than U.S. travelers.
"You're seeing people who now have the ability to leave eastern Europe, Asia," said Jonathan Tisch, president and CEO of New York-based Loews Hotels. "These are people who have the chance to get on an airplane for the first time."
The Travel Industry Association, a trade group for the industry, has launched its own marketing effort focused in Great Britain, Japan and Brazil.
The "SeeAmerica" campaign hopes to create a brand name in the minds of international tourists. The campaign has a logo, a slogan — "What's your American dream?" — and has launched a Web site in English, Portuguese and Japanese to serve as a one-stop information source about U.S. destinations.
The SeeAmerica print campaigns have already shown results for some of the companies that participated.
Universal Studios Recreation Group saw a surge of inquiries about the company's theme parks in Florida and California after ads ran in Britain, said Fred Lounsberry, the company's senior vice president for sales.
Tourism is the nation's third-largest retail sales industry, according to industry figures. It accounts for $582 billion in sales and directly employs 7.8 million people.
"We're talking serious money and serious job creation," said Betsy O'Rourke, an TIA senior vice president.
At one time, the U.S. government played a role in marketing tourism abroad, but the United States Travel and Tourism Administration and its $16 million annual budget was eliminated by a Republican-led Congress in the late 1990s.
The U.S. Department of Commerce still does research on international travel, and nearly every U.S. state and major city promotes its attractions, said Helen Marano, the department's acting deputy assistant secretary.
"The United States is more of a diverse country than any country can present itself," Marano said. "This country is well-supported by individual state and city funding in the marketplace."
Many in the travel industry disagree. Without a unified front promoting U.S. tourism, cities and states compete with each other for the same international tourists and conventions, said Bob Schultz, an official with the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Bureau.
"Indianapolis isn't just competing with San Diego and San Antonio ... but Beijing and Paris," Schultz said. "We're competing alone, while Beijing and Paris have their governments behind them."
