While U.S. tourism attractions are clamoring for efforts to reduce the wait time for processing visa applications for foreign visitors, a Commerce Department official said today the State Department already has made gains to accommodate record demand.
Isabel Hill, acting director of the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries for the Commerce Department, said while demand has intensified in major emerging economies like Brazil, China, India and Mexico, the number of visas issued are up by triple- and double-digit percentages since 2005.
Hill was a panelist in a discussion on attracting tourists to North American destinations at this week’s National Tour Association conference at Mandalay Bay. About 2,000 people are attending the conference, the first the NTA has ever held in Las Vegas in the organization’s 60-year history.
Increasing international tourism to Las Vegas is one of the strategies local officials are using to rebuild the local economy. Generally, foreign visitors stay longer and spend more when they’re here. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is trying to increase the percentage of foreign visitors to the city from 18 percent to 30 percent in 10 years.
Hill said the State Department is expecting to review 8.5 million visa applications in the current fiscal year, 4 percent more than the record 8.1 million in the 2008 fiscal year. She said visa issuances are up 234 percent in Brazil, 124 percent in China, 51 percent in India and 24 percent in Mexico since the 2005 fiscal year.
The State Department is on pace to process 41 percent more visas in Brazil and 34 percent more in China this year compared with last year.
Rossi Ralenkotter, president and CEO of the LVCVA, said the improvement has been made as a result of increased awareness but that there is a need to do even more because demand is so high.
Hill said part of the solution is in the diplomatic process.
“We can’t just go into a country and set up an embassy and take applications,” she said.
Part of the issue is in the negotiation of reciprocity agreements with foreign governments to enable more visitors to the United States. Some of those negotiations involve equalizing the amount of time between renewals.
The State Department plans to open a new consulate facility in Guangzhou and expand other operations in China, increasing capacity by more than 50 percent. The department is adding 90 new adjudicating officers in China and Brazil over a two-year period and will add temporary officers to manage peak summer demand.
Ralenkotter said it’s also an important cultural shift to be more welcoming to foreign visitors. He and Hill agree that the Department of Homeland Security’s role of protecting U.S. borders is paramount, but they acknowledge that a key component for repeat visits and word-of-mouth endorsements by travelers is to make visitors feel welcome and to simplify the entire entry process.
Making visitors feel welcome is a key component of the Caribbean Tourism Organization.
Panelist Hugh Riley, secretary general and CEO of the organization, said the 33 government entities of the Caribbean have formed a company that owns, promotes and protects the region’s brand and that it has created a “total visitor satisfaction” index to maintain high standards to meet tourists’ expectations.
“It’s a complete commitment,” Riley said. “We’re the most tourism-dependent place on Earth. Visitor satisfaction is not a hobby or a sideline, it’s a way of life.”
Panelist Pierre Santoni, senior director of domestic and international sales for VIA Rail Canada and a member of the Canadian Tourism Commission, offered an unconventional strategy. He suggested that tourism companies invest most of their funds in product development and infrastructure and less on advertising.
“We can’t dictate where the people are going to go,” Santoni said. “If it’s a good product, they (tourists) are going to find it.”
Asked how Mexico is addressing tourists’ fears of escalating violence involving battles between drug cartels, panelist Ricardo Anaya, undersecretary of tourism planning for Mexico, said there’s an enormous gap between perception and reality.
“Our visitor satisfaction surveys indicate that 98 percent of the people who visit want to return and would recommend a trip to their friends and family,” Anaya said.
He also noted that most of the cartel violence has occurred 1,200 miles from Cancun, one of Mexico’s major tourism centers.
“That’s about the distance between Houston and New York City,” Anaya said. “You wouldn’t cancel a trip to New York because of something that may have happened in Houston.”
The panelists from outside the United States said they don’t expect to lose tourism market share as a result of the Brand USA advertising campaign, which will be unveiled in March.
“I think the whole region will benefit,” Anaya said of the campaign, which will include ads in Europe encouraging travel to the United States.
Santoni said many foreign visitors develop itineraries that cross national borders and Riley said the Caribbean nations frequently collaborate with U.S. and Mexican tour operators to bring cruise ships to the region.
Riley also was critical of the news media’s reporting of disasters that occur in resort areas.
“The long-lasting image is the image of the disaster,” Riley said. “They don’t go back to show that everything is running well again, they’re off covering the next disaster.”
The NTA also announced plans to better serve the U.S. Hispanic market in collaboration with the American Society of Travel Agents.
The two organizations have formed a joint task force to research travel needs of Hispanic tourists and to educate members of both groups on how best to meet those travel needs.
“With estimates that Hispanics’ purchasing power will reach $1.3 trillion in the next three years, it is vital that we as an industry recognized what resonates with this market segment and what motivates them to travel,” ASTA Chair and President Nina Meyer said in a joint release announcing the initiative.