VUSA gears up for Travel Act

THE USA’s ground-breaking Travel Promotion Act is almost now law and requires just a final Senate vote before proceeding.

“The need for travel promotion has never been greater,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.

“As the recent vote of the International Olympic Committee demonstrated (when Chicago was overlooked as host for the 2016 games), the US must invest in better explaining its security policies and attracting foreign travellers.”

Once enacted a Travel Promotion Act Corporation will be created with
a 13-member board. This will be entirely separate from the U.S
Travel Association.

In the Visit USA Association pre-World Travel Market briefing, UK visitor numbers were shown to be 16 per cent down to the end of August 2009, compared with the record year of 2008 when 4,465,000 UK visitors entered the USA.

Helen Marano, director, Office of Travel & Tourism Industries, U.S. Department of Commerce, showed how largely static the top 10 states for UK visitors had remained between 2000 and 2008. The top states are Florida (30.3 per cent in 2008 compared with 35.1 per cent in 2000), New York (up to 29.6 per cent from 25.3 per cent) and California (up from 16.3 per cent to 17.8 per cent).

The next seven states are Nevada, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania (up from eleventh to seventh place), Texas, New Jersey and Arizona.

New Visit USA website developments for 2010 include the ability to join the Association online, a member video search and request feature and an enhanced member press release facility.

The online Visit USA Training Programme now has 1845 students enrolled with 336 passes at Standard Level and 179 at Advanced Level. To sign up, go to www.visitusatraining.com;  www.visitusa.org.uk