At Discover America’s “Ministry of Silly Walks”

The Discover America Partnership of the major US tourism companies has spent millions lobbying to get into the pockets of US taxpayers and international travelers via their Tourism Promotion Act to fund tourism promotion profiting itself, despite the huge profits these companies already have at their disposal.

It reminds me of the Monty Python “Ministry of Silly Walks.”

Despite being ably exposed last Sunday by the Washington Post’s lobbying reporter, Jeffrey Birnbaum, expanding in depth on the points I’d already made, the silly walkers at Discover America haven’t missed a step in their dance.

Last month, the chairmen of the Travel Business Roundtable and the Travel Industry Association, both leaders in Discover America, wrote President Bush imploring him to include their Travel Promotion Act in the economic stimulus package. They cite a tourism contracted study they say “projects the return on investment to be 35:1 in visitor spending.” Glory, with that kind of ROI, compared to ones that are a small fraction of that in industries that make major investments, why aren’t these titans of silly walk investing in their own business?

Today, the Travel Industry Association issued a press release claiming that “the United States, despite a modest increase over 2006, welcomed 11 percent fewer overseas visitors in 2007 than in 2000. More significantly, the United States welcomed 10 million fewer overseas visitors in 2007 than it would have if it simply kept pace with post-9/11 worldwide long-haul travel trends.”

“If” is a key word here, as the TIA offers a “if” trees grew to the sky argument. One might ask what would be “if” these tourism companies spent as much time and funds promoting their sites as they do trying to silly walk into our pockets?

Further, their figures are misleading, aside from spurious projections. Not only does Discover America silly walk through facts, but even its chosen unnaturally high base year – 2000 -- for comparison is misleading, as is their ignoring that a decline began in 2001 well before 9/11.

Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, international visitation to the United States was already in decline, suggesting the inability of the U.S. travel and tourism industry to maintain the record level of international arrivals set in 2000 when the United States welcomed more than 51.2 million international visitors. The months preceding September 2001 had negative growth in arrivals when compared to the prior year: February 2001: -2.8%, March 2001: -3.3%, April 2001: -5.8%, May 2001: -5.4%, June 2001: -3.3%, July 2001: -4.1%, August 2001: -0.2%. (See the Department of Commerce table here.)

Indeed, the Discover America Partnership in silly walking, which says that post-9/11 recovery in travelers to the US is less from more profitable Europeans than less profitable Mexicans, due to US border security restrictions, needs to face that the pre-9/11 decline was larger from Western Europe, before increased security checks at our borders: February 2001: -5.0%; March 2001: - 7.0%; April 2001: -14.6%; May 2001: -10.5%; June 2001: -12.2%; July 2001: -9.3%; August 2001: -4.1%.

Discover America and its corporate backers need to re-walk their assertions and look in the mirror for lagging marketing efforts that predate 9/11.

In 2000, US tourism revenues from foreigners was $103 billion. In 2007, they were almost $123 billion. Hardly an argument for dipping into taxpayer and travelers’ pockets to fund a self-serving pot for US tourism companies.

So much for the Discover America Partnership’s “Ministry of Silly Walks.”