Who will Mickey vote for?

The White House press release emphasized three markets for growth in U.S.-bound tourism: Brazil, China and India. But India somehow got left out of the specific plans and proposals. There is much in the executive order that will boost travel from Brazil and China, some that is global, and a big potential boost to traffic from Taiwan.

Tourism promotion has largely been left in the hands of the states and individual destinations. True, there have been Federal boosts to tourism over the years, often at the behest of Hawaii’s Senator Inouye, but Washington support for tourism has hardly been consistent. It makes supreme sense to do some joint marketing for the whole country. After all, few tourists are interested only in Mount Rushmore, but they might be attracted by a trip that would also take in Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Devils Tower and Glacier National Park – none of which are promoted by South Dakota. So I am pleased to see a new national approach.

The executive order doesn’t say much about tourism promotion beyond ordering the secretaries of Commerce and Interior to come up with a strategy. The order does, however, address some of the major impediments to attracting foreign visitors to our country and its sights. The departments of State and Homeland Security have been ordered to increase visa processing capacity in China and Brazil by 40% in 2012, presumably based on the successful visa processing program piloted at the American Consulate in Shanghai over the past couple years. Both China and Brazil have a huge backlog of non-immigrant visa applications and the goal is to be able to process 80% of applications within three weeks. No more waiting months to even see a consular officer.

The Global Entry Program is a “trusted traveler” program in which frequent visitors to the United States can have background checks done in advance so that processing through immigration at U.S. airports is accelerated. They scan their passports and their fingerprints, and they are on their way. Despite the pilot nature of the program and its availability at only twenty airports, nearly a quarter million foreign travelers have signed up. The executive order makes GEP permanent and orders expansion to more airports.

Listed last, but certainly not least, is a decision to add Taiwan to the 35 countries that already are covered by the Visa Waiver Program. Technically, Homeland Security has to approve this, but with an instruction from the President, it seems likely to happen quickly. We already see a lot of visitors from Taiwan, but expect a profound increase when they get the visa waivers.

One small thing puzzles me from my parochial perspective in Honolulu. The President announced new appointments to the U.S. Travel & Tourism Advisory Board, an advisory committee housed in the Commerce Department which should be heavily involved in developing tourism promotion strategies. There are 32 private sector members of the board, not one of whom comes from Hawaii, which I understand is a major U.S. tourism destination. Four out of the 32 come from Florida – and the announcement was made at Disneyworld. Now, let’s see, Hawaii is a safe state for Obama and has few electoral votes. Florida, on the other hand, … Silly me! The President wouldn’t play politics, would he?