{"id":10988,"date":"2007-05-01T19:00:52","date_gmt":"2007-05-02T02:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/05\/01\/the-ugly-american-visit.html"},"modified":"2007-05-01T19:00:52","modified_gmt":"2007-05-02T02:00:52","slug":"the_ugly_american_visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/05\/01\/the_ugly_american_visit.html","title":{"rendered":"The Ugly American Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n

“I left the US vowing never to return,” she wrote. “I’m not alone.”<\/p>\n

She’s right. Head’s experience echoes that of many disgruntled tourists who have bitter memories of treatment meted out by US immigration officials.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 <\/em>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,17,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-homeland-security","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10612,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/12\/11\/concessions_on_concession.html","url_meta":{"origin":10988,"position":0},"title":"Concessions on concessions?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 11-Dec-06 11:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"Why is it the TSA keeps adding new, bizarre, \"security theater\" restrictions on travel (e.g., the Global War on Liquids), but seems more than willing to reduce restrictions if there's...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49406,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/28\/the-state-product-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.html","url_meta":{"origin":10988,"position":1},"title":"The State Product That Dare Not Speak Its Name","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Jan-15 11:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear DIA: That horse has already left the barn. People are not going to not think of marijuana in association with Colorado just because you ban souvenirs with that as a theme from the airport.As a Colorado resident, I (and my immediate family) pretty continuously encounter a string of marijuana\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133028,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/13\/make-america-isolated-again.html","url_meta":{"origin":10988,"position":2},"title":"Make America Isolated Again!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-Mar-17 1:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"While I'm sure there are lots of people eager to get the jobs Donald Trump has promised to return to America, the \"American First\" rhetoric, travel bans, and widespread stories of visitors to the US being detained, harassed by Customs, and sometimes sent back home, is already having an effect\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21133,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/03\/twilight-of-the-tourists.html","url_meta":{"origin":10988,"position":3},"title":"Twilight of the Tourists","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 3-Jun-11 5:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"Volterra is a remarkable walled Medieval hill city, renowned for its Etruscan artifacts and alabaster craftwork. Also, apparently, they filmed some bit of some US movie here, and the place is full of posters, shirts, books. *sigh*","rel":"","context":"In "Travel - Italy 2011"","block_context":{"text":"Travel - Italy 2011","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel\/travel-italy-2011"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21115,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/31\/pushy-girl.html","url_meta":{"origin":10988,"position":4},"title":"Pushy Girl","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 31-May-11 3:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, we're silly tourists.","rel":"","context":"In "Travel - Italy 2011"","block_context":{"text":"Travel - Italy 2011","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel\/travel-italy-2011"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4740,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/14\/a_fluke_of_scie.html","url_meta":{"origin":10988,"position":5},"title":"A fluke of science","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Jan-04 3:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Norwegian authorities are concerned about a site now being visited by many children and tourists that may be full of toxic PCBs. What multinational heartless conglomerate is responsible for this...","rel":"","context":"In "Science & Nature"","block_context":{"text":"Science & Nature","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/science"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}