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Public Policy Issue Briefs
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Issue: Travel Promotion Act
Overview: The National Restaurant Association strongly supports passage of the Travel Promotion Act to create a marketing program for the United States as a premier travel destination through a partnership between the federal government and the private sector.
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Overview
Overseas travelers spend on average $4,500 per person per visit to the United States; much more than domestic travelers. Restaurateurs understand that these dollars are important because visitors represent 40 percent of fine dining annual restaurant sales, 20 percent each of the family and casual dining segments’ annual restaurant sales, and 15 percent of quick service annual sales.
While international travel around the globe has boomed over the past several years, with 48 million more overseas trips taken in 2008 than in 2000, America actually lost visitors, welcoming 633,000 fewer overseas travelers over the same period of time. That means the U.S. has not captured a single new foreign traveler, even when the dollar was relatively weak and America was a “bargain.”
The decline in overseas travel to the United States is directly linked to the mistaken, but widespread perception that visitors are not as welcome as they may have been previously and that many new post 9/11 security policies are intrusive and unnecessary. According to a 2006 survey by the Discover America Partnership, potential travelers are more concerned about treatment by U.S. immigration officials than crime or terrorism.
Additionally, the United States has no means of direct communication with overseas travelers; leaving all messages and communications about new security policies and improvements to the travel process to be filtered by the foreign media. America’s competitors are spending billions of dollars in promotion programs to attract visitors, and yet the United States spends zero.
According to Oxford Economics a well executed travel promotion program, like the one laid out in the Travel Promotion Act, would attract 1.6 million new international visitors annually, create $4 billion in new spending and drive $321 million in new federal tax revenue. And it would create jobs. If the United States had simply kept pace with global travel trends, 58 million more overseas travelers would have visited the United States between 2000 and 2008 – and would have generated an estimated 245,000 new U.S. jobs in 2008 alone.
The Travel Promotion Act would help to attract millions of new international visitors by:
1. clearly explaining U.S. security policies;
2. reversing negative perceptions of the entry process into the United States;
3. maximizing economic and diplomatic benefits of overseas travel to all 50 states and the District of Columbia; and
4. promoting the United States as a premier travel destination.
The Travel Promotion Act establishes a public-private campaign to attract foreign visitors that will be jointly managed by government and the private sector at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office stated that enacting The Travel Promotion Act (S. 1023) would raise $425 million in revenue for the federal government over the next 10 years.
Legislation: The bi-partisan Travel Promotion Act of 2009 (S. 1023/H.R. 2935) has been introduced by Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and John Ensign (R-NV) in the Senate and Congressmen Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) in the House. The Senate passed the legislation by a vote of 79-19 on September 9th. It was the first piece of legislation the Senate considered upon their return from the August recess. Consideration now moves to the House where decisions will soon be made on how to move the bill forward.
Questions?
Contact Michelle Reinke at mreinke@restaurant.org or Dave Koenig at dkoenig@restaurant.org.
Related Association news releases
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[September 9, 2009]
National Restaurant Association Hails Passage of Bipartisan Travel Promotion Act by U.S. Senate
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