RustyC

"This hurts us," Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said, citing a 30 percent decline in overseas visits to the United States over 2 1/2 years. "It's is not serving our interests. And so we really do have to work on it."

Link to full story

Looks like Powell and Ridge finally get that all the post-9/11 moves have seriously hurt tourism to the U.S. and all the jobs associated with it. They're calling for reviews. Would suggest they start with that $100 visa fee that is causing places like Turkey, Brazil, Russia, Chile and India to charge Americans similar amounts.

I guess it doesn't hurt that states that have been affected the most, like Florida, New Jersey and Nevada, are also battleground states in the election.

Hoc

The problem is, when you project a facist image to the world, as we have over the past three years, you will have people not wanting to risk coming here.

WHBM

The perception over here is that virtually every week the US authorities feel the need to announce some fresh restriction or difficulty on tourism to the US. Notably it's been combined with a complete elimination of all the former advertising here for visiting the USA.

This week's stories are about proposed new 5-hour checkins for Transatlantic flights so all your data can be sent over to the US authorities for approval before departure, and that we're all going to be fingerprinted on arrival. In Britain as in many countries being fingerprinted means being treated like a criminal.

And the stories about queueing, rudeness, harrassment and abuse of arriving visitors by the multiple layers of US bureaucracy have become daily fodder for the newspapers here (just like they have on FlyerTalk). Particularly how any tired, travel weary arriving passengers who don't follow all of the barked instructions seem to be immediately threatened with arrest. So don't be surprised that people don't come so much. If I acted like all this when people visited my home, don't you think I'd see a drop-off in visitors too ?

It's such a shame. The normal Americans we meet seem so friendly and completely different.

genka

But at the same time, planes are full. Also on my Sunday return to IAD we had to wait in a shuttle bus for 20 min, because line to a passport control was so long, there were no room for us to get in!

bluewatersail

Yes, Genka, planes are full and judging from my 4 transatlantic flights this year(latest last week) most of the passengers seem to have non US accents.

Analise

Money talks. The favorable exchange rates will bring people here. They seem to be doing just that already in New York.

YVR Cockroach

Resident Aliens returning from VFRs?

moondog

I'm with you 100% on that point. It's not the money that bothers me so much as the, "oh yeah, well take that!" response that the changes triggered.

I'm currently 3 days into the process -- think police stations, doctors offices, notarized letters from host instiutions, rental contracts; the list goes on -- of getting a simple 3-month visa extension in China that would have required no more than 5 minutes of my time several months ago.

magexpect

Planes are full, not because more people are coming, but because the airlines have cancelled a lot of flights and often reduced the sizes of the planes. Many flights used to be on 747's, they have been replaced by A340's.

rustyr

[QUOTE=WHBM]The perception over here is that virtually every week the US authorities feel the need to announce some fresh restriction or difficulty on tourism to the US. Notably it's been combined with a complete elimination of all the former advertising here for visiting the USA.

This week's stories are about proposed new 5-hour checkins for Transatlantic flights so all your data can be sent over to the US authorities for approval before departure, and that we're all going to be fingerprinted on arrival. In Britain as in many countries being fingerprinted means being treated like a criminal.



Because of the 30% drop, they are thinking of delaying these measures .see following: http://twcrossroads.com/news/newswra...d=Agent+Issues also:http://twcrossroads.com/news/newswra...rticleID=42551 voice your opinion:http://capwiz.com/nbta/mail/compose/...d=20004&target...