"Many legitimate potential international visitors now deliberately avoid travel to the U.S. due to real and perceived barriers to entry," said the Travel and Tourism Advisory Board.
A survey in June by the Travel Industry Assn., an advocacy group for the tourism business, found that 77% of travel agents worldwide thought the United States was more difficult to visit than other countries.
"We're not a welcoming country," said Geoff Freeman, executive director of the Discover America Partnership. "Most countries ask people to come visit them. We have more of a fortress appearance."
That will become even stronger in January, at least for travelers in the Western Hemisphere, when the U.S. plans to require passports from everyone -- including Americans -- who enters by air or sea from another country in this hemisphere. In 2008, that is to include those who return by land and are used to showing only a driver's license or a similar form of identification after a quick trip across the border into Canada or Mexico.
America's loss of market share in international travel has almost exactly offset the growth in the number of international tourists. According to the Commerce Department, the number of foreigners who entered the United States last year -- more than 49 million -- was 1.5 million fewer than the total in 2000, before the terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
But as the international tourism pie has grown in overall size, the U.S. slice has gotten smaller.
The Travel and Tourism Advisory Board estimates that the U.S. travel industry has lost $286 billion compared with what it would have taken in had the United States maintained its all-time high market share -- 9.6%, achieved in 1992.
The industry's profits are not the only things that have suffered.
Three studies early last year by the market research firm GMI found that foreigners who had visited the United States held more favorable opinions of this country and its people than did those who had not.
"This demonstrates that the U.S. travel and tourism industry has an important role to play in improving the image of the U.S. abroad," the Travel Industry Assn. concluded.
Disney's Rasulo, in his capacity as chairman of the Travel Industry Assn., is spearheading the Discover America Partnership.
Its goals, he said, are to achieve a more comfortable balance between the nation's security needs and its interest in foreign tourism; to organize a national campaign to market the United States as an international tourist destination; and to gain a voice for the tourism industry when the government considers policies that would affect travel.
Rasulo suggested the possibility of government funding of tourism promotion, possibly in the form of an exit tax on foreigners as they leave the United States.
He said Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez had agreed to represent the travel industry in discussions with other agencies, such as the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
"Other countries have publicly supported efforts to sell themselves," Rasulo said. "By and large, we have abandoned the task of marketing America."
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joel.havemann@latimes.com
