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Travel Promotion Act / Political Travel / Barack Obama / USA Travel / → All Tags

Who Will Pay Now That The Travel Promotion Act is a Law?

Today, President Barack Obama signed the Travel Promotion Act into law, which means that many international tourists heading into the States will have to fork over an extra $10 just to set foot in the land of liberty. The idea is pretty straightforward, but the word "promotion" is deceiving, since it's not like the USA is going to be tempting tourists to come over by asking them for a little extra money. Here's what we can expect from this new law:

Once signed into law, the Travel Promotion Act will create a public-private partnership with a budget of up to $200 million annually—funded by a $10 fee on foreign travelers from countries that do not pay for a visa to enter the United States—for the purpose of attracting international travelers to the United States.

It will also create a corporation that "will promote the United States as a travel destination and explain travel and security policies to international visitors." That's right—we're storing up those $10-a-head fees so that the United States can better attract more to come over, pay their $10 and then dump more money in the country. The goal? More money all around, from restaurants to hotels to every industry that gets a pieces of tourism dollars. We just wish that it would go towards building a decent rail system. We're anxious to see how the EU reacts to this; heck, we're anxious to see how any other country that doesn't pay for visas to visit the US reacts to this. It might only be an extra $10 per person, but that adds up pretty quickly.

Related Stories:
· US Travel Promotion Bill Signed Into Law [CNN]
· TIME Tries to Explain Congress' Desire to Tax Foreign Tourists [Jaunted]
· US Senate Passes Bill Fining Tourists in the Name of Tourism [Jaunted]
· Political Travel [Jaunted]

Travel Promotion Act / Travel News / Travel Fees / Tourism / → All Tags

TIME Tries To Explain Congress' Desire To Tax Foreign Tourists

TIME magazine has finally gotten around to covering the new government-funded US tourism board that we covered a few months ago. We're mentioning our post not because we posted the story way back in September, but because the way we emphasized the Travel Promotion Act was exactly the opposite of how TIME is covering it. It's not that the venerable news weekly didn't get to all the angles eventually. It's just that they took a different, kind of obnoxious road.

Whereas we highlighted how it's a bad idea for Congress to charge Europeans an extra $10 per trip, the better to promote Las Vegas hotels and restaurants, TIME took a more "reprint what the press release said" approach. Let's take a look at the article:

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