U.S. Image Abroad, Security Hassles Hurting Tourism

Flipping through her Polish/American dictionary, Bernadka Olech, 20, sits in the breakfast room at the Green Tortoise Youth Hostel in downtown Seattle and tries to come up with the words to describe her first few hours in America.

She and her brother, Paul, 25, and their friend Marta Superson, 22, missed their connecting flight in New York. At first, they wandered around John F. Kennedy Airport feeling helpless and scared. They don't speak English that well and couldn't find anyone who spoke Polish.

"Then someone helped us," she explained. Someone who worked for the airlines. "They helped us find a hotel and a new ticket." The next day, they were on their way to Seattle, with an onward connection to Alaska, where they have summer jobs at a fish-processing plant.

Their impression of the United States? "It's very friendly," she said. And cheap. They paid $23 a night for a bed in a dorm room at the Green Tortoise, including breakfast and a free Wednesday night vegetarian stroganoff dinner.

Hassles getting student work visas? None. Immigration at JFK? Breezed right through. The biggest surprise, she said, was having to take their shoes off at airport security.

The three students aren't exactly the kinds of big-spenders tourism officials are talking about when they worry that America's sagging image abroad is eroding our share of an expanding global travel market. But their impressions do matter.

Attitudes among young people were the only bright spot in a recent Pew Research Center survey on global attitudes. Favorable opinions about the U.S. have been dropping since 2002. After showing signs of improving last year, the Pew study said anti-U.S. feelings are again on the rise among most of the 15 countries surveyed.

Only a quarter of those in Spain expressed positive views of the U.S., down from 41 percent last year and half of those surveyed in 2000

. In Great Britain a little more than 50 percent gave the U.S. a thumbs-up, compared to 83 percent in 2000; in China, it was 47 percent; in France, 39 percent; and in Germany, 37 percent. Among 18-34 year-olds, however, positive opinions rose in both France and Germany.

Lost tourist dollars

What's it all mean for travel?

Roger Dow, president of the Travel Industry Association, says he believes the image problem is partly to blame for a steep drop in the U.S. share of the world's growing tourism market.

"America's image abroad is in crisis right now," he testified recently at a U.S. State Department hearing. While the number of people traveling outside their country rose 52 percent in the past 15 years, the U.S. share of the worldwide travel market dropped from 9 to 6 percent, a 33 percent dip that cost the economy $286 billion in revenue and governments $48 billion in tax revenue, according to the TIA, a trade group representing airlines, hotels and tour operators doing business in the U.S.

Meanwhile, China, the fourth-most visited country after France, Spain and the U.S., drew 41.8 million foreign visitors in 2004, almost as many as the U.S., according to the World Tourism Organization. By 2020, China is expected to become the world's No. 1 destination, drawing 130 million people annually.

The number of foreigners visiting the U.S. peaked at 51 million in 2000, then fell to a low of 41 million in 2003, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and start of the Iraq war. Although the numbers are rising again (about 50.4 million are expected this year), Keefe says the increases should be much bigger. "They're going to other countries that are either making it easier to get in, or have a sustained marketing effort to remind people that they're there," she said.

The TIA has its own agenda, of course. Its members include conglomerates such as Walt Disney Parks & Resorts and Loews Hotels who profit by more foreign visitors. But it's encouraging to see a business group pushing the bureaucrats to weigh the consequences of their actions.

In light of new security measures such as requiring foreign visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed, the U.S., the TIA rightly points out, could do more to promote tourism abroad (the federal government will spend about $4 million this year compared to Canada's $80 million and the U.K.'s $20 million), and make the whole experience more welcoming.

Travelers will take the path of least resistance, said TIA Chairman Jay Rasulo in a speech in Washington, D.C., in January. "Unfortunately, in this day and age, that path doesn't always lead to the U.S."

Eliminating the hassles

The Polish students were lucky. The U.S. government is happy to help the Alaskan fish-processing industry and others looking for cheap labor by making it easy for students to get temporary work visas. Other groups face hassles.

Consider the crisis earlier this year in France when thousands who don't normally need visas to travel to the U.S. were forced to get them because the French government couldn't meet a U.S. deadline for issuing new machine-readable passports.

Many French tourists simply chose other destinations this year, and estimates are that the lost revenue could add up to $500 million.

It's worse for the 87 percent of the world's population that come from non-visa waiver countries, the TIA points out. Brazil, for example. People who want to come to the U.S. have to show up in-person at the U.S. Embassy in San Paulo with a $100 in non-refundable application fees per person.

If you live outside San Paulo, you have to buy airline tickets to fly there and take time off work. Said Rasulo, "You might choose to do what many Brazilians and others around the world are now doing with increasing frequency going elsewhere."

Bigger spenders

Statewide, tourism is a $12.4 billion industry, with overseas visitors generating only about 11 percent of that amount. But those who come spend an average $150 a day compared to $105 for travelers visiting from other parts of the U.S.

"They're very important to us because they spend more and stay longer," said Betsy Gabel, of Washington State Tourism.

Working in Washington's favor is the fact that most overseas visitors come from Japan, where, according to the Pew survey, 63 percent still express a favorable view of the U.S.

Travel from Japan to Seattle was up 39 percent last year vs. 2004, and Seattle's two daily non-stop flights to and from Tokyo are filled most of the time.

"I think Seattle and the Pacific Northwest buck the trend," said Don Welsh, president and CEO of Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Seattle ranks 17th (tied with Dallas and San Jose) among U.S. cities when it comes to attracting foreign visitors. About 347,000 people came last year, up 7 percent from 2004.

British Airways added a second nonstop between Seattle and London for the summer and the Port of Seattle is talking with Air France about adding nonstop service to Paris, both encouraging signs, Welsh said.

In Oregon, where Lufthansa offers nonstop flights between Portland and Frankfurt, tourism officials are working to head off any second-thoughts Germans might have about vacationing in the U.S.

They recently launched where German travelers can exchange information about their experiences, said Teresa O'Neill, director of sales and marketing for Tourism Oregon.

"We think it's a better way to counter those negative images."

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