Travel industry expects boost from Commerce nominee Pritzker

Congressional lawmakers and travel industry advocates expect President Obama’s nominee to head up the Commerce Department to aggressively pursue ways to boost foreign travel to the United States and steel the nation’s economy.

{mosads}Penny Pritzker, the heiress to the Hyatt hotel fortune, told lawmakers on Thursday that as Commerce secretary she would continue knocking down travel barriers to feed billions more into the economy and create more U.S. jobs.

Travel is “something that is a great source of exports as well as a terrific job creator.”

Pritzker said she recognizes that the United States is using a variety of tools to ramp up tourism again after years of declines.

“You know, unfortunately, the United States has lost market share in the long-haul travel business and that’s something that we need to regain,” Pritzker said.

Between 2000 and 2010, the global travel market grew by 40 percent, yet the U.S. share of the market has fallen to 12 percent from 17 percent because of the now-improving visa process.

International arrivals around the world are projected to grow by 36 percent by 2020, resulting in $2.2 trillion in direct travel spending and 62 million jobs.

Patricia Rojas-Ungar, vice president of government relations at U.S. Travel Association, said Pritzker is “absolutely” an asset for achieving a travel agenda that includes speeding up visa times in the high-demand countries, streamlining the arrival process and allowing more countries into a visa waiver program.

Rojas-Ungar says Pritzker’s hospitality background makes her a “natural fit to understand travel.”

“More needs to be done and Commerce can play that role,” she said. “Every dollar is an export dollar and Commerce is always trying to spur growth in exports.”

But even before Pritzker’s likely confirmation — she has bipartisan support from senators and the backing of travel and business groups — the Senate took giant steps last week toward implementing a handful of the travel and tourism agenda items into its immigration bill.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a slew of long-needed provisions from the Jobs Originated through Launching Travel Act, or JOLT, as part of the measure that is headed to the floor.

Those amendments would allow for the expansion of the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), including making Hong Kong eligible to apply for membership, set up a pilot program to test the use of videoconferencing to speed up the interview process for visas in countries where traveling to consulates is difficult, provide a more accurate method of calculating visa overstay rates, encourage more travel from Canada and add 3,500 new customs officers at major U.S. entry points toward a goal of a maximum 30-minute wait time for those coming into the United States.

Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) co-sponsored the amendment that would carve out an exemption for Hong Kong to join the VWP program, which allows tourists and business travelers from several dozen countries to visit the United States for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa.

But the biggest problem now is long wait times — upward of three hours — at air, land and sea entry points, Rojas-Ungar said.

“The real problem is when the international press is writing about it,” she said about a story written by the British press and one she sent around to Capitol Hill staffers overseeing the immigration bill.

Now the trick is to get the House to move forward with similar provisions in its immigration bill and Pritzker could have a hand in that.

Pritzker’s consensus-building ability helped her rally federal agencies around a plan to improve visa wait times in high-demand countries.

“When I was on the President’s Jobs Council, I spearheaded the effort to reduce visa wait times, which were ridiculous from some of the most major countries that to come and visit and travel throughout the United States,” she said.

She pressed for more interviewers and offices to meet with potential travelers, who, on average, spend $4,200 during their trips here, with visitors from some countries like China spending upward of $6,000 during their stay, according to U.S. Travel.

The result, a huge drop in wait times for visas.

In Brazil, they have fallen to just a few days, down from 140 days, while wait times have been reduced to about a week in China, a drop from 70 days, all in just the past two years.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told Pritzker at her hearing that “you know, foreign travelers are the low-hanging fruit for our economy.”

“Again, you probably know more about that than anybody in this room. And your sense of how important travel is to the economy, and particularly foreign travel,” he said.

He specifically made a push for Brand USA, a public-private partnership to promote travel to the United States, saying that it has “great potential, but clearly needs somebody in the department paying attention to be sure that everything they do is justified.”

Pritzker agreed, calling it a “really exciting opportunity.”