Several weeks ago, I drew a storm of criticism onto my head by suggesting, in a blog, that current State Department and Department of Homeland Security officials were responsible for a recent sharp drop in incoming tourism to the United States (see "Why hasn't tourism to the U.S. soared?"). Several readers wrote that my criticism of these eminent people was based simply on my political beliefs. I had pointed out that in numerous countries, it required several months simply to obtain an appointment with U.S. consular officials to discuss an application for a visa. And that such torpor could not help but discourage travel to the U.S.

There's now been another development. As if the failure to issue visas expeditiously weren't bad enough, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed (as reported in the trade press on June 25) to create additional obstacles to those foreign citizens who don't need visas to travel here. Under the Visa Waiver Program, citizens of 27 countries (like Great Britain and Ireland) don't require visas; the Department is proposing that these exempt individuals, in advance of departure, provide the U.S. with biographical data and their proposed travel plans within the U.S. They would then receive electronic authorization to proceed with those plans. A nation that cannot issue visas on time is expected to quickly and correctly review the travel plans of millions of other would-be tourists to the U.S.

In what way do these new obstacles protect us? How would such a requirement prevent a terrorist from simply e-mailing that he is planning to visit friends and relatives? Or to sightsee and attend the theater in New York? And don't such silly added steps simply discourage tourists from coming here?

So it's necessary to repeat my earlier contention. With so much at stake, with so much income, including tax income, to be enjoyed through added tourism, with so favorable a time for incoming tourism because of the weak U.S. dollar, the failure to create smooth and reasonably quick procedures for the issuance of visas is a catastrophic oversight. The further proposal to require that foreigners advise us in writing of their plans is loonier still. The entire situation calls for intervention by grown-ups.

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Labels: passports, trends