Long waits, rude functionaries, presumption of criminality, intrusive security measures, and other obnoxious activities during travel? For Americans, all we can do is sit around in grumble. But tourists to the US can vote with their feet — and their (exchanged) dollars.
In a January Listener article New Zealand journalist Marilyn Head described how she missed a flight after being treated like a criminal by US airport guards.
“I left the US vowing never to return,” she wrote. “I’m not alone.”
She’s right. Head’s experience echoes that of many disgruntled tourists who have bitter memories of treatment meted out by US immigration officials.
Before September 11, US airport staff often seemed to err on the laid-back rather than on the vigilant side. Now some overzealous officials appear to regard all tourists as potential terrorists. Entering America can feel like running the gauntlet.
“We are citizens of a country regarded as one of the closest allies the US has,” frequent British visitor Ian Jeffrey told the Orlando Sentinel last November. “Yet on arrival we are treated like suspects in a criminal investigation and made to feel very unwelcome.”
Such comments, and the poll results – which rate the US by a 2:1 margin as the world’s “most unfriendly” destination for foreign travellers – are found in “A Blueprint to Discover America,” unveiled in January by Discover America Partnership to halt a dramatic decline in foreign visitors.
According to the blueprint overseas travel to the US has slumped 17 per cent since 2001, even as world travel to other countries reaches historic growth levels. The decline has cost US$94 billion ($127 billion) in visitor spending, US$16 billion in tax receipts, and some 194,000 American jobs. Many poll respondents said that visiting the US had become a hassle and that they would take their holiday money elsewhere.
Interestingly, the objections are less to American foreign policy, or even the acknowledged need for border security, but over a combination of rudeness and an attitude from border personnel that every potential visitor is a terror suspect until proven — for the moment — innocent.
In the business world, it’s an established fact that for every “good story” that someone shares about their customer service experience, someone with a bad experience will tell eleven others. The assumption that the only way we can be secure is by driving away everyone, even our friends, or assuming that there’s no way we can possibly use up all the good will that people might hold for us, seems to be SOP for an Administration that’s been tone deaf to everything but it’s own fiat to do whatever it wants in pursuit of its goals, no matter what others think about it.
One of my customers (the staff members for whom I provide technical support) has a quote on the wall behind her desk. It says; “People may not remember your name or what you did for them, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel.”
Those tourists are our customers! And if they can afford plane tickets, they can go anywhere.
Yup.
And that not only impacts tourism, but business — business trips, business contacts, business alliances. And, beyond that, it create an attitude, a gut sense of reaction to “those Americans” that can permeate cultures for years.
Hell, do we really want to be the next French?
Doyce and I totally felt, even as Americans, that traveling back from Europe last fall to New York was the worst part of the trip. From the ridiculous regulations, additional security, and buses out to planes parked in the middle of nowhere, it was all just a huge mess.
Also, ok, fine, you want to not allow any liquids of more than 3oz. through security? ICE CREAM IS NOT A LIQUID!!!
Sorry, I’m still incensed by that.