reports that the United States is second only to France in the number of foreign tourism visits, and that the United States enjoyed growth in visits from the 2010 reporting year compared to the 2009 reporting year. The submitted article didn't mention statistics like this, but reported on anecdotes.
I'm an American who has lived overseas. I haven't crossed an interational border in a bit more than a decade. (All other members of my family have crossed international borders since 9/11/2001.) I hope to travel to Canada by car with my whole family this summer. I fully agree with the author's premise that the United States ought to look as friendly and welcoming as the people in my community when foreign visitors first encounter a United States border official. But I can't help but wonder if this really matters a lot from the "attract tourists" point of view, if the United States has a continued growth in the number of tourists, and it is second only to a Schengen Area country that has a land border and rail connections with other Schengen Area countries in the number of foreign visitors it enjoys every year. Maybe most visitors understand that annoying security measures at the border are part of what make the freedom of movement inside the United States borders a palatable policy for many Americans who are more worried about terrorist attacks than I am.
It's also possible that word hasn't spread enough among potential foreign travelers of the pain of the U.S. Border control. A lot of foreign travelers to the US may have not experienced recent border control at all, and so they decide to travel without any real knowledge about that.
The "unwelcome mat" may be damping tourism growth by discouraging repeat visitors rather than outright discouraging all visitors.
> The "unwelcome mat" may be damping tourism growth by discouraging repeat visitors rather than outright discouraging all visitors.
I agree 100%.
I managed a hostel in Ecuador for 6 months, and most visitors from Europe had a forced stopover in the US on their way to Latin America. The horror stories were amazing, and many people vowed to never again cross into the "land of the free".
I read through the whole interesting submitted article, and the one question I have is about actual numbers of tourist visitors to the United States.
After the worldwide recession, tourism to the United States from other countries declined,
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Foreign-Tourism-Drops-in...
but the number of tourists has since recovered. The United Nations World Tourism Barometer
http://mkt.unwto.org/sites/all/files/docpdf/unwtohighlights1...
reports that the United States is second only to France in the number of foreign tourism visits, and that the United States enjoyed growth in visits from the 2010 reporting year compared to the 2009 reporting year. The submitted article didn't mention statistics like this, but reported on anecdotes.
I'm an American who has lived overseas. I haven't crossed an interational border in a bit more than a decade. (All other members of my family have crossed international borders since 9/11/2001.) I hope to travel to Canada by car with my whole family this summer. I fully agree with the author's premise that the United States ought to look as friendly and welcoming as the people in my community when foreign visitors first encounter a United States border official. But I can't help but wonder if this really matters a lot from the "attract tourists" point of view, if the United States has a continued growth in the number of tourists, and it is second only to a Schengen Area country that has a land border and rail connections with other Schengen Area countries in the number of foreign visitors it enjoys every year. Maybe most visitors understand that annoying security measures at the border are part of what make the freedom of movement inside the United States borders a palatable policy for many Americans who are more worried about terrorist attacks than I am.