Washington’s twisted tourism logic

Congress after years of lobbying by the travel and tourism community across the country, has finally begun to realize the positive impact of tourism dollars on our economy. Every visitor brings, literally, hundreds of dollars a day into the economic stream through entrance fees, sales taxes, meals, hotels, rental cars, gasoline purchases, souvenir sales and more with virtually no additional outlay.

Everyone wins when tourists visit the U.S.A. The U.S. Travel Association has been preaching this sermon for decades.

There is only one problem. The methods the United States government is introducing are out of whack and counterproductive.

If a country like Spain, Italy or Australia invited you to come and visit and then proceeded to demand that prior to visiting you had to be fully fingerprinted, had to fill out a detail questionnaire with personal information and then charged you an entrance fee to visit their country, would you think twice? I certainly would.

I already don’t like having to pay the generally $131 reciprocity fee, to enter Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. Imagine if they made us jump through hoops if we wanted to visit.

That’s exactly our country’s approach to encouraging tourism.
1. Charge all visa-waiver-country visitors a entrance tax to enter the U.S.A.
2. Force visitors to fill out an intrusive entry form
3. Treat every valued visitor like a criminal

Let’s look at these step by step.

1. Charge visitor more. The new program has just passed the Senate and it will now be signed by the President.

The initiative is funded through a matching program featuring up to $100 million in private sector contributions and a $10 fee on foreign travelers who do not pay $131 for a visa to enter the U.S. The fee will be collected once every two years in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security’s Electronic System for Travel Authorization. No money is provided by U.S. taxpayers.

The plan includes not only an advertising and promotional campaign, but also the need to communicate and explain U.S. policy and procedures for entering the U.S. Past policies, U.S. Travel said, were often confusing and a barrier to encouraging travel to the U.S. An eleven member Board of Directors will be named to the Corporation for Travel Promotion along with an executive director and professional staff to manage the program.

2. Force them to fill out an intrusive questionnaire. Beginning March 20, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) requires foreign nationals to submit their personal information via the Internet before boarding a U.S.-bound flight.

I have never had to answer any questions like this, even back in the days when I visited the evil Soviet Union or traveled to East Berlin and Eastern Europe.

In case your eyesight needs help, here are the basics.
• Have you been arrested or convicted for a crime involving “moral turpitude”? (What is the definition of moral turpitude?)
• Have you been a controlled substance trafficker? (You have got to be kidding!)
• Are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities? (Is Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on drugs themselves?)
Are you involved or have you ever been engaged in sabotage or were you a Nazi war criminal? (My name is James Bond. Of course, I ran the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Besides barely anyone is still alive who would have been, let’s say 20-years-old back in 1933 – 1945. They would be between 85 and 97 years old now.)

I am not kidding you. These are the questions that we ask everyone visiting the United States on the Visa Waiver Program. The visitor can be the mayor of Paris, the CEO of Volkswagon, the top chef in Italy, Spain’s top bullfighter or the Australian actress Nicole Kidman who played a courtesan in Moulin Rouge. They can be coming for a government meeting, to star in a film, to teach at our universities, to consummate a big business deal. They all get this same mindless questionnaire to fill out online prior to entry into the United States.

I’ve heard the defense of this online form as something along the lines of, “Other countries, like Australia do it.”

I checked into the Australian form. During the Sydney summer Olympics when I visited and on other trips when I was writing about Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin and the outback, I don’t remember answering any questions about my past life as a Nazi concentration camp guard, my visits to prostitutes or my arrest record. Australia simply requires a passport number, birth date, flight numbers and some dates of travel.

Finally, the United States requires all visitors to waive all of their rights to question any actions by CBP.

Waiver of Rights: I have read and understand that I hereby waive for the duration of my travel authorization obtained via ESTA any rights to review or appeal of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer’s determination as to my admissibility, or to contest, other than on the basis of an application for asylum, any removal action arising from an application for admission under the Visa Waiver Program.

3. Treat them like a common criminal. After these astounding questions and the waiver they sign, visitors have their mug shots taken and are fingerprinted — all 10 fingers — before being allowed to enter the country. Yep. It is all included in the waiver shown below.

In addition to the above waiver, as a condition of each admission into the United States under the Visa Waiver Program, I agree that the submission of biometric identifiers (including fingerprints and photographs) during processing upon arrival in the United States shall reaffirm my waiver of any rights to review or appeal of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer’s determination as to my admissibility, or to contest, other than on the basis of an application for asylum, any removal action arising from an application for admission under the Visa Waiver Program.

If I was not doing this research myself, I wouldn’t believe the indignities our friendly visitors have to put up with in order to enter the United States.

We will need far more than a Travel Promotion Act that adds another tax on entry and then creates a fluffy picture of the beauty of America in order to increase tourism to our United States. We need to begin treating tourists like the visitors they are and work at welcoming them into our country rather than treating them like suspected war criminals, potential child molesters, spies, terrorists or common crooks.