"Travel industry fears tougher security"

Sunday, July 3, 2005

Travel industry fears tougher security 
Already tight precautions discourage foreign visitors and are about to get
tighter
By David Armstrong
The San Francisco (CA) Chronicle


Foreign visitors, who pump billions of dollars into the U.S. economy, are
not arriving in hoped-for numbers due to tighter post-Sept. 11 security
rules, according the latest travel industry figures. 

That is slowing the recovery of hotels, airlines and other businesses that
are counting on a surge in commerce from the weak U.S. dollar. 

What's more, industry executives say planned federal passport and visa rules
and other measures intended to safeguard the nation are creating the
perception of a Fortress America overseas, tarnishing this country's
reputation for hospitality and personal freedom. 

As a consequence, visa applications from foreign travelers have dropped by
one-third from pre-Sept. 11 levels, and fewer foreign students are applying
to U.S. schools. Moreover, travel agents report booking foreign travelers
away from the United States, and airlines that serve overseas hot spots say
business is down on their routes to the United States. 

Even some casual visitors say they are coming to this country less often and
leaving sooner, citing a hassle factor at U.S. borders and airports. 

Norman Fong said his wife's sister, who lives in Canada, is treated with
suspicion "whenever she comes to visit us because they believe she might
overstay her visa. She is originally from Hong Kong, and her English is not
perfect. She said here during her last brief visit, 'I don't want to come
here too often because they always harass me at the airport.' She was so
upset, she only stayed three days and returned to Canada. She was going to
stay longer.'' 

Washington officials counter that entering the United States is becoming
easier and quicker for foreign tourists, business executives and academics
and that the notion of a Fortress America is an aftereffect of the confusion
and anxiety following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 

After Sept. 11, Washington mandated the collection of more information about
travelers to confirm their identities and necessarily subjected travelers to
closer scrutiny, said Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for visa
service. Consequently, some people were delayed or barred from the United
States, sometimes without understanding why. 

Entering the country is much easier now, Jacobs said, thanks to recent steps
the government has taken. Washington has created 350 positions at U.S.
consulates, where visa applicants undergo in-person interviews. It also has
allowed visa-holders to stay longer, upgraded its Web site
(www.travel.state.gov) and slashed the waiting period for approved visas to
14 days from 75 days for the 3 percent of applicants who get extra
screening. 

"Now, 97 percent of the people who are approved for visas get them in one or
two days,'' the State Department said. 

All travelers to the United States, whether or not they require visas, are
photographed and have digitalized prints taken of both index fingers as part
of the U.S.-Visit program operated by the Department of Homeland Security.
The department's officials say the procedures add only seconds to screening.


Nevertheless, conflicting opinions about the ease or difficulty of travel
are roiling America's $600 billion tourism industry at the start of the peak
summer season, thus costing the nation money as well as goodwill, industry
figures say. 

Overseas travel to the United States this year will be 15 percent below the
peak year of 2000 -- 22 percent below, if you don't count visitors from
Canada and Mexico. The numbers of Japanese travelers are down 21 percent
since 2000, German travelers down 20 percent and French travelers down 24
percent, according to the Travel Industry Association. 

The number of international visitors should have been well above this year's
expected 46 million, said Roger Dow, the association's president and CEO.
"It should be more like 60 million, when you consider America is on sale, ''
he said referring to a weak U.S. dollar, which makes this country a bargain
for foreign travelers. 

Foreigners spend billions 

Foreign visitors spent $74.8 billion in the United States last year,
according to the association. If 60 million arrive this year and spend their
euros, yen and pounds at the same rate, this country would harvest an
additional $16 billion. 

The stakes are especially high in tourism-dependent cities such as San
Francisco. Some 2.83 million foreign visitors arrived at San Francisco
International Airport in 2000, but only 1.69 million passed through SFO in
2003, the latest year for which statistics are available. 

Foreign travelers, who often spend more than domestic tourists, light up
cash registers at restaurants, theaters, department stores and souvenir
shops. They also contribute a big chunk of the $150 million in hotel room
occupancy taxes that are expected to flow to City Hall this year. Tourism is
worth $7 billion a year to San Francisco, according to the San Francisco
Convention and Visitors Bureau. 

While the number of foreign visitors is climbing from the slump years of
2001 through 2003, there would be many more arrivals if not for the
unintended consequences of heavy-handed security rules, the travel
association's Dow said. 

"We need to strike that delicate balance'' between security and prosperity,
he said. "The question is: Have we overreacted since Sept. 11?'' 

Dow said he has asked to meet with new Department of Homeland Security chief
Michael Chertoff to express his concerns. 

Airport concierges proposed 

Dow also said he will propose placing concierges' from the lodging industry
in busy airports to assist harried travelers and will offer to help train
federal security officials in international protocol. 

In the meantime, the effects of tighter security are playing out in
different ways among companies that do extensive international business. 

"I had to book Chinese academics headed to Brazil away from San Francisco or
Los Angeles airports'' because they would have had to secure U.S. visas just
to change planes here, said Janice Hough, a travel agent at All Horizons
Travel in Los Altos. "I booked them through Frankfurt instead. That put
their business-class tickets up to $8,700 apiece from $6,600.'' 

Hough said foreigners' trepidation about traveling to the United States
hasn't cost her agency any overseas business as far as she can tell. "but it
does reduce the options we can offer clients.'' 

For companies doing business in the Middle East, the Muslim world, Russia
and other unsettled places, business has been affected more substantially. 

Singapore Airlines, for example, has seen a steep drop in passengers to the
United States from Indonesia, a predominately Muslim country that has
experienced domestic terrorism, said Subhas Menon, regional vice president
for the Americas. 

"Executives from Indonesia used to comprise 15 to 20 percent of our
business-class traffic to the West Coast,'' Menon said. "Now it's less than
5 percent.'' He attributed the drop to the suspicion that Muslim travelers
encounter at airports and their difficulties in getting visas to this
country. 

However, for Au Pair Care, which places foreign child care providers with
American families, tighter security rules "have had no effect at all,''
according to Heidi Woehl, vice president of the San Francisco company. 

For Au Pair Care, which places vetted caregivers for periods of up to a
year, getting qualified candidates from mainstays such as Poland and the
Czech Republic got tougher after those countries joined the European Union
last year, opening more job opportunities in Western Europe. 

The company doesn't recruit from more troubled parts of the world, she said.


Foreign students, especially young men from the Middle East and South Asia,
are under suspicion, some academics say. 

At Humboldt State University's English Language Institute, which trains
international students in English speaking and reading skills for periods of
several weeks to four years, enrollment fell from an average of 30 students
before Sept. 11, 2001, to about 10 now, said Don Andrews, program director. 

"I used to be a full-time director. Now I am (also) teaching classes,'' he
said, referring to downsizing of the program after enrollment fell. 

Visitors become U.S. fans 

The irony is that most students go home as fans of this country, he said.
"They go back as so pro-American. They're our best ambassadors, even
(students) from Saudi Arabia and Qatar,'' Andrews said. 

This is in accord with an April opinion poll by the travel association that
found that foreigners were more likely to hold high opinions of this country
if they had been here than if they hadn't. 

Only 38 percent of Canadians, Britons, Japanese, Germans, French and
Brazilians who had never visited this country had a positive image of the
United States, the poll found. Of those who have been in this country, 54
percent had a positive impression. 

Washington officials say they are doing all they can to get out the word
that security requirements are being streamlined and made more transparent
and predictable than they were a year or two ago. "We are engaged in a very
aggressive outreach program,'' said the State Department's Jacobs. 

State Department statistics show the refusal rate for visa applications - -
about 1 applicant in 5 -- has remained consistent since 2000. The big
difference is the number of applicants: down by about a third, from 10.1
million in 2000 to 6.6 million in 2004. This suggests that some would-be
travelers have given up and are not bothering to apply. 

That's a problem, according to the travel association's Dow. The United
States is losing its share of the expanding global travel market as newly
middle class people in the developing world bypass the United States and
travel where they feel more welcome. 

"There are 500 million people in China and India combined who have enough
money now to come to the U.S. if they can get visas. If we get 10 percent of
them, it will make a huge difference.'' 

Upcoming passport and visa changes 

Oct. 25: Travelers from 27 mostly European nations that do not need visas to
enter the United States will be required to carry passports with tamper-
proof digital photographs of themselves. 

Jan. 1: American citizens re-entering this country after visits to Caribbean
nations will be required to carry U.S. passports to get back in. Currently,
a driver's license or birth certificate will do. 

Oct. 26, 2006: Citizens of 27 nations who do not need visas to enter the
United States will be required to carry machine-readable passports from
their home countries, embedded with biometric data such as their digital
fingerprints and iris scans. (This requirement has been postponed twice,
most recently last week.) 

Jan. 1, 2008: American citizens re-entering this country from Canada and
Mexico will be required to carry U.S. passports. 

Sources: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of State


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