A visitor poses in front of the sunset on Sanibel Island in Florida. Todd Kulesza / Flickr

Florida welcomed a record 89.3 million visitors in 2012, up from 87.3 million in 2011. This growth is due in part to the number of overseas and Canadian visitors increasing far faster than was expected based on historical trends.

Florida’s goal of becoming the most visited destination in the world hinges on increasing brand awareness and attracting international visitors. Visit Florida released its 2013-2014 Marketing Plan on Tuesday morning and in it is a wealth of self-reported and outside statistics as well as an outline for increasing visitation and spending in the future.

Both overseas and Canadian visitors increased 8.8 percent year-over-year to 10.2 million and 3.6 million, respectively. These foreign tourist spent a combined $15 billion in 2012, a 9 percent increase over 2011.

In comparison, U.S. visitation hit 75.6 million in 2012, up just 1.2 percent year-over-year.

Although international visitors won’t overwhelm domestic visitors any time soon, their rapid growth signifies the most opportune market to focus on in the future.

International markets

Visit Florida categorizes countries as core, growth, and emerging tourism markets. Its short-term focus is increasing brand awareness with an eye for long-term strategies that will bring the new generation of travelers from develop markets like India and China to Florida, and the U.S., in the future.

Below is a breakout of each of Florida’s international tourism markets and what they contributed to the state’s economy in 2012.

Download (PDF, 7.59MB)

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That’s not the greatest signal to be sending to the world just three months after raising $25 million in a Series B funding round.

The three-year-old company, which is left with a staff of around 130 after the bloodletting, clearly will be drawing down on some of its growth plans.

Faguet tells Skift that one focus will be on developing direct relationships with hotels in cities inside and outside the former Soviet Union that are important to Russian travelers instead of taking a broader geographic approach.

In addition to downsizing its staff, Ostrovok is trying to make its marketing spend more efficient.

Faguet labels the recent steps Ostrovok has taken as “very difficult” and “a tidying around the edges to a certain extent.”

The company isn’t giving up on growth, which is an imperative, but it is facing stubborn competition not only from Booking.com, but from offline travel agencies, as well, Faguet says, adding that about 90% of Russians still book their travel offline.

Part of the shift to online will take place “naturally,” Faguet says, but Ostrovok has also increased its brand awareness through a recently ended TV campaign on “prime-time channels,” and the company is currently analyzing the advertising’s impact.

Faguet concedes that Ostrovok’s overly ambitious project timetable and large burn rate forced management to spend an inordinate amount of time on fundraising, and this was a “huge distraction.”

Ostrovok has raised about $38.5 million in Series A and B rounds, and a few months ago was talking about trying to raise another $100 million in a year or two.

That timetable may have been pushed back a bit.

Faguet says Ostrovok needs to identify more opportunities for profitable growth, and that the next time it hits the fundraising trail, the company will have to be on a more solid financial footing to attract quality, equity investors.

Ostrovok’s growth story took a negative plot twist this week, and it will have to work hard to alter those perceptions.

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Locals explain why Haiti is a great place to "let go" in the country's first ad campaign. Screenshot / Tourism Haiti

Haiti’s Tourism Ministry unveiled its first travel commercial on Friday afternoon.

The ad is Haiti’s attempt to kickstart its quiet tourism industry and attract visitors to what the video calls “the soul of the Caribbean.” The video is in Creole with English subtitles.

Haitian officials see tourism as an important means to boosting the island’s economy and providing work for locals; however, skeptics worry that too much emphasis on the travel industry leads to minimal benefits for locals.

An article in Haitian Times expanded on the argument:

To promote tourism, Haiti’s present efforts have included the construction of airports…building hotels…and opening a hospitality school, amidst other initiatives. However, for the countless Haitians…physical and social infrastructure investments such as new roads, school buildings, public health services and workforce development (beyond tourism training institutes) can go a lot further in bolstering their daily realities.

The ministry also launched vacation packages from the United States in partnership with Canadian tour operator Transat Holidays.

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Naspers, the South African media and internet conglomerate which has a global portfolio of digital acquisitions, is now close to another one: it is buying India’s biggest bus booking service RedBus.in, for a reported price of between $100 million to $140 million, according to two reports in Economic Times and NextBigWhat.

The talks are still in advanced stages of negotiation, and it may involve a majority stake, not outright acquisition. Earlier this year reports came out that ReBus was trying to raie $20 million from private equity, but looks like it led to these sale talks. Last year Naspers took a stake in India’s largest ecommerce site Flipkart.

RedBus was founded in 2006, and grew to be the largest bus ticketing site in horrendously unorganized sector in the country. It says it is now selling 10 million tickets every year, with gross sales nearing $200 million annually. Bangalore-based Pilani Soft Labs, the holding company of Redbus, has raised about $10 million in three rounds of funding so far, from investors such as Helion Venture Partners, SeedFund and Inventus Capital.

From MediaNama, on Naspers’ travel investments in India:

If this acquisition turns out to be true, it will probably strengthen [Nasper India's] online travel ticketing venture Goibibo which already offers bus ticketing services along with flight and hotel reservation services. Last year, MIH Group had acquired 51% stake in the Gurgaon-based travel company Tek Travels, which owned a B2B travel portal Travel Boutique Online, which provided white label solutions for agents to offer B2B and B2C travel bookings online.

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The problem with many travel inspiration startups is not clumsy UX, ugly designs, or foolish founders, but that it is inherently impossible to commoditize spontaneity, surprise, and delight.

Even if you could, any well-traveled soul knows that you wouldn’t really want to.

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U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle ruled June 15 that the provisions of Travelocity’s user agreement of February 4, 2010, require customers to individually arbitrate claims when the amount in dispute is less than $10,000.

In fact, if you want to book a hotel on Travelocity.com, you must consent to the user agreement, which bars participation in class action lawsuits.

The ruling is a blow to plaintiffs who seeks class action status for an amended complaint filed May 1 alleging that most-favored nation clauses between hotels and online travel agencies that bar the hotels from offering distribution partners lower rates than they do on the hotels’ own websites amount to a price-fixing scheme.

The ruling, however, appears to apply solely to Travelocity and the particulars of its user agreement, leaving other defendants, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Priceline.com, Booking.com, Orbitz, Wyndham, Carlson, Best Western, Choice Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Starwood, Marriott, Trump Hotels, Hilton Kimpton, and EyeForTravel, still in play.

And, the ruling doesn’t necessarily remove Travelocity from the line of fire, either; the judge ordered the parties to provide updates on the arbitration proceedings every 90 days.

The plaintiffs unsuccessfully argued that Travelocity’s motion to compel arbitration, filed in April, would usurp their rights to file their claims as a class, and that it was unfair to compel arbitration in the same county where Travelocity has its headquarters.

It’s unclear if other defendants, to the extent that their own user agreements have provisions similar to Travelocity’s, will now likewise file motions to force arbitration.

Regulatory authorities in the U.K. are investigating similar hotel-price fixing issues involving online travel agencies and hotels.

Here’s the judge’s ruling:

Download (PDF, 181KB)

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Back when airline tags first started, they were influenced by the multi-color design of maritime and railroad travel tags before them, and with it came the variety of colorful designs, a study in typography and minimalistic city icons. London-based artist Neil Stevens recently came upon these vintage airline tags and decided to turn them into large wall prints.

As he describes it:

It was recently that I stumbled on a lovely set of old airline baggage tags and was amazed at the variety in designs produced since the 1950s. There was something about the now iconic, easily reconisable three letter abbreviations of the city destinations, and the small surrounding details that I thought would look great blown up and on a wall. They often avoided logos, had no advertising, and were purely just the information you needed.

So with these graphic and typographic gems I decided to go ahead and turn them into large format wall prints.

We loved these so much, we’ve ordered some for the new Skift offices!

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SniqueAway will do just that as TripAdvisor has decided to retire the SniqueAway brand in favor of its acquisition, Jetsetter.

Less than three months after acquiring Jetsetter, TripAdvisor is phasing out its home-grown private-sales brand, SniqueAway, Skift has learned.

When TripAdvisor acquired Jetsetter in April, the spin was that the two brands, Jetsetter and SniqueAway would co-exist, but sales director Kathleen Hanefeld has emailed hotel partners, informing them that “as of June 28, SniqueAway.com will become Jetsetter.com.”

“Our parent company, TripAdvisor, acquired Jetsetter April 9 and, after reviewing what would be the best experience for our travelers and our partners, we decided to combine our assets and have SniqueAway become Jetsetter,” the email says.

Once the SniqueAway brand is phased out at the end of the month, partners will be introduced to “new team members,” and hotels will be given information about how they can partner with Jetsetter, the email says.

It’s rare for TripAdvisor to retire a brand, but despite its financial troubles, Jetsetter clearly was the better known and more successful brand of the two.

TripAdvisor’s Smarter Travel Media launched SniqueAway around September 2010 at the height of the flash-sales craze when, in addition to Jetsetter, Kayak was running private sales, as were companies such as RueLaLa.com and Vacationist, among others. TripAdvisor was still an Expedia subsidiary at the time.

Meanwhile, Expedia partnered with Groupon to launch Groupon Getaways, a flash sales effort where hotels are put on sale for perhaps a couple of days.

While Jetsetter still runs flash sales, about half of its hotel sales these days are of the standard, retail variety with no deadline for completing a sale.

Hanefeld told hotel partners that any sales currently scheduled to run on SniqueAway or Jetsetter won’t be impacted by the consolidation of assets.

Here’s the SniqueAway email to hotel partners:

Dear Partner,

I’m very excited to let you know of a change that’s coming up: As of June 28, SniqueAway.com will become Jetsetter.com.

Our parent company, TripAdvisor acquired Jetsetter on April 9 and, after reviewing what would be the best experience for our travelers and our partners, we decided to combine our assets and have SniqueAway become Jetsetter.

This transition gives us access to an even larger member base, as well as several other fulfillment and service benefits.

Here’s what this means for you:

- Any sales you have scheduled to run on SniqueAway will be completely unaffected by the change.

- Any sales you have scheduled to run on Jetsetter will also be unaffected.

- The partner extranet, our online tool for managing your flash sales, will remain active until the last SniqueAway reservation departs.

- All reservations and payments will remain secure, and our customer-service team will remain at your disposal to answer any questions at support@sniqueaway.com.

The success that SniqueAway has enjoyed has been due in no small part to our relationships with our partners, and I want to offer sincere thanks on behalf of myself and the entire SniqueAway (and Jetsetter!) team.

After June 28, we’ll be reaching out to our partners individually to introduce new team members and discuss options for partnership with Jetsetter. If you have any questions before then, please feel free to get in touch with me or email the team at partners@sniqueaway.com.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Hanefeld, CHSP

Sales Director

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June 28, 1998, President Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea visit The Great Wall in Mutianyu, China. Sharon Farmer / White House

On October 30th 1995, President Bill Clinton gave a speech at the White House that should have been the seminal defining moment for the travel industry in America, cementing the rise of U.S. as the pre-eminent destination, once and for all.

This was the White House Conference on Travel and Tourism, the first ever event in U.S. history that was meant to elevate travel business and the business of promoting America as a destination to the federal level. The White House invited 1,700 leaders of the travel sector in U.S. for this conference, to unveil the new national tourism strategy.

This was supposed to be the start of opening up of America to tourists globally, making it easier for them to come to U.S., and building up a global marketing machine that promoted the country and its various attractions to visitors worldwide. Atlanta’s Olympic Games were scheduled for the following year, and that would have been the perfect platform to promote U.S. tourism on a global scale.

One line from Rep. James Oberstar, introducing President Clinton before his speech, encapsulated the hopes of this day, and the event: “This is the day tourism wins respect as a pillar of our national economy.”

Alas, it wasn’t to be. The recommendations of Clinton’s speech and the strategy developed in the conference that followed got caught up in the partisan bickering, and any plans of creating an apex organization responsible for tourism promotion, part funded by the government and part funded by the industry, never materialized. Mostly, it was the rise of Newt Gingrich and his brand of small-government conservatism that ensured any new federal spending — much less on what was looked upon as a non-serious industry — wouldn’t ever happen. All plans were shelved by the Clinton administration shortly after.

Not only did that kill any hopes for a new national tourism strategy, it also meant that U.S. essentially killed the existing 35-year old tourism department that was part of Department of Commerce. In 1996 the U.S. also withdrew from the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), citing budget pressures.

Sep 11, 2001 and the security frenzy that followed ensured that travel and tourism in the country plummeted to lows unseen in decades, and the industry never fully recovered from the effect of policies that came after.

After 1995, it took another 17 years before another President spoke about the travel and tourism as an industry that deserved a lot more serious attention than had ever been given at federal level, and led to the creation of Brand USA.

By this time, the travel industry became the world’s largest sector and the largest employer, driven by changes in policies globally to spur movement of humans and money that came with them. America lost out on the global travel explosion over the next two decades since that original Clinton speech.

We have reproduced that 1995 speech in entirety below, mainly for the prescient way in which it indicated what travel meant an an industry, the job creation engine it could have been, the promise of that this sector held for the future of America, and what didn’t happen after. C-SPAN even has a video archive of his speech, which we’ve also embedded below.

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I am very proud that this is the first White House Conference on Travel and Tourism. And I know all of you agree that it’s about time.

This industry has been near and dear to my heart since I was a little boy. I grew up in a resort town that also embraced a national park. As an adult I’ve had the good fortune to travel a fair amount, although as President I must say one of the more frustrating aspects of the job is I go to a lot of interesting places and never get to be a tourist.

As Governor, I enthusiastically attended our Governor’s conference on tourism every year. And I want you to know that this is very important to me personally and that this time is a very important time for you to be gathering here.

This industry holds much promise for the future of America. It has a lot to teach us as Americans, as we stand on the dawn of a new era, moving from an industrial age to one that will be dominated by technology and information and our ability to relate to one another and to move quickly in terms of ideas and technology and people across the globe. We’ve moved at a breathtaking pace from the divided world of the cold war to a global village. If the 21st century is going to be an American century, we have to master this transition as surely as we mastered the shift from the agricultural to the industrial economy. And we will.

To meet the test of the time, we have to dedicate ourselves to promoting and strengthening those aspects of American society which will clearly work best in the global economy. And we know that trade and tourism and travel, all these things are tailor-made for what we do well and what the 21st century will value.

That’s why I have dedicated myself to helping this industry grow. A healthy travel and tourism industry is good for the economy, and it also gives Americans a larger service. If you think back to the first time as a child you left home to go somewhere new, recall the first time you met someone who was visiting you from a faroff place, I know that you came away from the experience with a greater knowledge of other people and other communities, a stronger sense of the common humanity that unites us all. And I would guess that you returned with an increased appreciation for something just as important, your own home, your own community, your own roots.

Travel leads to understanding. It increases the chances of peace, and therefore, it increases the chances of a better life for all. When you just travel this land you learn the miracle of America. Our people are as diverse and wonderful as our landscape. Going to another State can almost be like going to another country, and if you come from another State to Washington, it’s almost like space travel. [Laughter]

Travel is also democratic, with a small “d.” It used to be a luxury reserved for the aristocracy. But in the history of American travel and tourism you can see that the marvelously optimistic quality of our people made this something that everybody ought to do. We look at something set aside for the very few at the top and we say, “Hold on, everybody ought to have the opportunity to work hard and then enjoy that.” Most Americans may not travel first class, but for a long time now our families have been able to load up the car and head for a fallcolored national park or a warm beach or a clean motel on the side of a road leading to a place they have never been before.

Of course, the travel and tourism industries are also essential to providing opportunity for all Americans in the 21st century. You are our largest business service export. As Greg said, in 1993 you generated a $22 billion trade surplus for the United States. You’re the second largest employer in the Nation, providing jobs for over 6 million Americans. And of course, you employ millions more through the industries that thrive when you do well. As the circle of freedom expands around the globe, the tourism industry will keep growing all around the world. And as you grow, here at home the hardworking Americans whose jobs are changing along with our economy will have a chance to find a home with you.

Many Americans have general worries about all service-sector jobs. Somehow they think they’re not as steady and don’t have as good of prospects for the future. But I know that we’re all working to prove otherwise. Service industry wages are among the fastest rising wages in our economy. And I support your efforts to reward hard work and to give people incomes that they can build solid lives on and raise children with. For all these reasons, I have committed myself to giving your industry the opportunity to flourish that it deserves. It is part of a strategy that I have embraced to restore the American economy and to ensure the American dream and America’s leadership into the 21st century.

The first thing I want to tell you is that your country is clearly on a roll. We have a resurgence of economic growth. We have a dramatic reform in the size and scope and way of operating of our Government. And most important of all, we have a reassertion of basic American values in every community in this country.

In the last 2 1/2 years since I have been privileged to be your President, Americans have produced 7 1/2 million new jobs; 2 1/2 million new homeowners, bringing home ownership to a 15year high; over 2 million new small businesses, the most rapid growth of small businesses in American history, with the lowest combined rates of unemployment and inflation in 25 years. The Government’s role in this economic resurgence was to reduce the deficit while increasing our investment in education, in training, in technology, in research, and in partnerships with the private sector to promote American products and services all around the world.

Our trade with other countries has increased by 4 percent in ’93, 10 percent in ’94, and 15 percent in ’95. As a percentage of our national income, the deficit is less than half of what it was when I became President. For the first time since Harry Truman, the deficit has actually been driven down for 3 years in a row. As a percentage of income, the United States of America now has the lowest Government deficit of any industrial country in the world except Norway. Every other country has a higher deficit as a percentage of their income than we do. I’m proud of that, and you should be proud of it, too.

We are now debating here in Washington how to balance the budget. But the good news is the leaders of both parties want to finish the job. I believe we have to do it in a way that is consistent with our values, that keeps our economy going, and that maintains our leadership in the world.

More important even than the economy to me is the encouraging signs that Americans are getting back together around the values that make life worth living. In almost every State and significant community in America the crime rate is down, the murder rate is down, the welfare rolls are down, the food stamp rolls are down, the poverty rate is down, the teen pregnancy rate is down, and child support collections have increased 40 percent in the last 3 years. Our country is moving in the right direction and coming back together. That is a terribly important development.

Specifically with regard to the tourism and travel industry, we have taken a series of very specific steps designed to help you succeed at what you do. First of all, we have a disciplined, coordinated leadership effort and a commitment to promoting travel and tourism, beginning with the Secretaries of State, Commerce, and Transportation; our Trade Representative, Ambassador Kantor; the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, led by Ruth Harkin; and the Export-Import Bank, led by Ken Brody. Secondly, we have worked very hard to open markets and to support U.S. exports including travel and tourism around the world. We have concluded more than 80 separate trade agreements in less than 3 years. Tourism is an export, and we have fought for it just as we have fought for other industry.

The U.S. Trade and Tourism Association is leading a public-private partnership to double the number of Japanese visitors to the United States by the year 2000. The reason is clear: Of the 7 1/2 million new jobs that have come into the United States since I have been President, 2 million, 2 million came from the expansion of the sale of American products and services overseas. International visitors spent $78 billion here last year.

The second thing we’ve worked to do is to sign open-skies agreements with more countries to facilitate air travel here. Earlier this year I signed an open-skies agreement with Canada, deregulating the world’s largest aviation market: more flights, lower fares. Last month we concluded an open-skies pact with nine European countries. We’ve expanded air service around the world to Great Britain, Brazil, Ukraine, the Philippines.

We’ve worked hard to give you a healthy airlines industry. They were in deep trouble when I came into office. Every airline in America but one was losing money. Three were in bankruptcy. From 1988 to 1992, the industry lost $12 billion, more money lost in 4 years than it had made in its entire history. I appointed a special commission headed by the former Governor of Virginia, Gerry Baliles, to revive the industry. Secretary Pena has now carried out the vast majority of its recommendations. Today the airlines are healthy, the fares are down, the passengers are up, and they are turning a profit. We are moving in the right direction.

We’ve also worried about industry safety, to try to make America a safe harbor and to try to guarantee the safety of Americans around the world. We see today ironic and mostly encouraging developments, peace in the Middle East coming along, more peace and less violence in Northern Ireland, tomorrow peace talks opening about Bosnia here in the United States, something we are proud to host. We also know that there are new threats to our security that go across all national boundaries, that the organized forces of destruction and terror know no nationalism.

We saw terrorism at home blow up the Federal building in Oklahoma City and foreign terrorists try to take the World Trade Center down, plan to bomb the United Nations. We see abroad when a religious fanatic sect can take a small vial of sarin gas into a subway in Japan and break it open and kill scores of people and injure hundreds of others. And we know we have to work together, together with other countries, to reduce the menace of terrorism and violence and drug trafficking and organized crime in this world. That was the subject of the speech I gave to the United Nations last week on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

But I also want you to know that we are doing everything we can to help your local officials and your community bring the homegrown crime rate down in America. The crime bill that was passed in 1994 was an astonishing piece of legislation. It provided for putting a hundred thousand more police officers on our street in community policing settings so that we could reduce the incidence of violent crime. It provided for prevention programs, not designed and run by the Federal Government but run by local communities to give our young people something to say yes to, constructive endeavors, avoiding a life of crime. It provided for tougher punishment. And we now have the first convictions coming in under the “three strikes and you’re out” law, where we take career criminals and just put them away. It provided for all these things, plus the Brady bill, which kept 40,000 criminals from getting handguns last year— 40,000. Next time somebody tells you that didn’t work, tell them to think again.

Now, that’s one big reason the crime rate is down. We’re on time—we’re actually slightly ahead of schedule in putting these police officers out there on the street. And we are trying to give you a safe America that everyone is happy to travel in and to be a part of, in every State in our community, in cities and rural areas alike. That is a very important priority with me. And we’ve got to keep this crime rate coming down, down, down.

The other thing we’re trying to do is rooted in a lesson I learned as a Governor when I realized that every time we opened a new State park or refurbished an old one, or did something to one of our State’s landmarks, we helped the private sector tourism in the area. We have done everything we could to promote and enhance our national parks and our national landmarks and our national monuments, as well as to maintain the ability of the United States to have clean air, clean water, safe drinking water, and a generally very healthy and high-standard environment. I am therefore opposed to changes which would undermine our ability to provide a clean environment or would require us to sell off any of our national parks or national assets.

I congratulated Congressman Oberstar on the victory won and headed by Congressman Richardson of New Mexico, in the Congress just last week to get rid of this hit list of over 300 American treasures that some in the Congress wanted to sell off, including the home of President Roosevelt, where I met with President Yeltsin last week. I hope that idea is dying a very timely death. We need to enhance our public investments.

So we are committed to doing things that will help the tourism industry, that will promote travel, that will enhance your efforts. Let me say, we are also doing it with a much smaller Government. There are 163,000 fewer people working for the Federal Government today than there were the day I became President. Next year, the Federal Government will be the smallest it’s been since John Kennedy was President, under the budget we passed in 1993. And as a percentage of the civilian work force, it will be the smallest it’s been since 1933. The era of big Government is done. The era of smart Government is here. It is the right thing to do.

We have 16,000 fewer pages of Government regulations. My favorite, because I’m from Arkansas, was when I showed up I realized there was a whole page of Government regulations on what grits were. [Laughter] And I could have just given the name of 400 people they could teach something to, and they could say this is grits or it’s not. [Laughter] So we’re getting rid of a lot of that. We got rid of 16,000 pages— you think I’m kidding, it really was there— [laughter]—16,000 pages of regulations have been eliminated. We have proposed to eliminate hundreds of programs.

But we also want to make the Government work better. A lot of you are small business people. Maybe you’ve had some help from the Small Business Administration. In the last 3 years, we have cut the budget of the SBA by 40 percent, but we have doubled the loan volume. We have emphasized making loans to women business people and to minorities without in any way reducing the loans that white males were getting or without watering down the standards for making the loan one bit. The SBA is simply working in a more entrepreneurial, more effective way to try to help more small business people get started in the United States in every part of the United States no matter who they are or where they come from. That is the kind of Government that the taxpayers of this country are entitled to. And it will help the travel and tourism industry if we can accelerate the growth of small business in America.

Another thing we are trying to do in this Congress—and I think we have a good chance to get a bipartisan agreement on this—that affects an awful lot of small business people, and I would imagine a lot of you in this audience, is to make it easier for small business people to take out retirement plans for themselves and their employees. The present rules and regulations are a nightmare. They are too cumbersome; they are too expensive. The legal fees alone keep thousands of small business people from doing anything in this important area.

So if you’re interested in this and this will affect you personally, I would urge you to contact your Member of Congress and get a status report on this. As far as I know, there is no partisan difference here. We just know that small business is creating most of the new jobs in this economy; that retirement programs, health care programs are often too burdensome, too inaccessible for small business people; and this legislation can make it much, much, much easier for people in small business to take out retirement plans for themselves and to help their employees. And I would urge you to help me get this done. I think we have a broad coalition for it. It just needs to be made a priority so that no matter how busy we are, we take care of this. I am committed to it, and I hope you will be as well.

Finally, let me say that we are trying to do two more things to make the Government work better and cost less that directly affect the travel and tourism industry. The Vice President is going to speak to you tomorrow, and he will talk about the work we’ve done in reinventing Government with the Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service which has changed the way we greet our own citizens and visitors as they enter the United States. If you’re coming or going legally, we want to get the Government out of the way and get you on your way. And that will make a big difference if we do it right.

Now, finally, I want to mention this second point. We have worked very hard to enact reforms at the Federal Aviation Administration. Having a Federal Aviation Administration that works, that has the confidence of all Americans, that operates the airports efficiently and safely, that has a lot to do with how well those of you in travel and tourism do, unless you get all your customers off the road. And it is a very important thing for the United States, for our economy, for the convenience and for the safety of our people.

The FAA controls the bottom-line efficiency of the airline industry. Yet, believe it or not, its air traffic control system in many places still depends upon stone age technology that’s often older than the flight controllers using it. [Laughter] I know that’s hard to believe. At a time when our private sector is building the most advanced airplanes in the world, the FAA is still buying vacuum tubes like this—the Vice President gave me this just before I came over—to run the computers and the radar systems that ought to be run by chips. We actually have to buy these vacuum tubes for some of the old computers and radar systems from other countries because they’re not even produced here anymore.

Now, this is unacceptable. Americans have a right to believe that the FAA will be run with the highest technology in the world and that they will get where they’re going on time at a reasonable cost and at maximum safety. I never want a parent to think twice when a child asks if the flying is safe.

Now, we’ve been very blessed by very safe and careful airlines, and our control and regulatory system has worked very well over time. But we also know that there’s no point in pretending something’s all right when it’s not. It is not all right that the FAA does not have the highest technology, safest, most efficient equipment in the world. That is not all right. We have to change that.

That’s why more than 2 years ago I made FAA reform a top priority and asked the Vice President to include it at the top of his list in the National Performance Review. In early 1994, almost 2 years ago, we sent Congress a plan to overhaul the Agency. Building on suggestions from the airline commission that helped us to turn the airline industry around, we called for a procurement system that gets the FAA new technology while it’s still on the cutting edge, a new personnel system that puts controllers where they’re needed and rewards them for good work, and a radically new financing system that ensures stability, demands accountability, and provides incentives for efficiency.

We’ve done everything we could to fix the FAA on our own. Secretary Pena and Administrator Hinson brought in a new management team and put in plans to modernize the system. We have speeded up the replacement of failing computers at some of our busiest air traffic centers, so there will be fewer of these and more of the chips. And we have stepped up training for controllers and technicians.

But unfortunately, we cannot do everything we need to do alone. We have to have some legislative help. And I am very pleased that Congress has put together finally a transportation appropriations bill that embraces the personnel and the procurement reforms we asked for 2 years ago. I am very gratified that members of both parties came together to create this important legislation, and I’d like to give a special word of thanks to Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon. When this bill hits my desk—[applause]— we’ve got the Oregon group back there. When this bill hits my desk, I intend to sign it. And we will get FAA back on a glide path to the 21st century.

But there’s more to do. We still have to overhaul the financing of FAA. Today’s budget process simply does not guarantee the agency the long-range funding it needs to operate safely and efficiently. Again let me thank Congressman Oberstar and Senators McCain, Ford, and Hollings for their work on this. I want Congress to redouble their efforts. We have got to fix this problem once and for all.

Now, let me say that these are my ideas for what the National Government can do to support you in what you’re trying to do. I’m sure that you have some ideas about that, too. I never met a group of people that I thought had more consistently higher levels of energy and more consistent openness to new ideas than the people I work with throughout my career who are in tourism and travel.

One big point of a White House Conference on Travel and Tourism is for us to listen to you, not for you to listen to us. I came here to make a report to you because you’re entitled to that and it will help you to know where we are and how we’re thinking. But when you leave, I want you to report back to me and tell me what more you think we can do to help you to succeed.

I will say again: Next year the whole world will be looking at the United States when the Olympics open in Atlanta. They may let the Braves carry the torch in now. [Laughter] But the world will be looking at us. It will give us a new opportunity, an even greater opportunity, as billions of people all over the world look at the United States, to enhance the chances that more and more and more of them will want to come here to see what America’s like up close, to share in all the things that too many of our fellow countrymen sometimes take for granted.

We want to be ready for that. We want to keep this country on a roll. We want to keep coming back to our values, and we want to keep pushing our economy forward. And we want to keep being a leading force in the world for peace and freedom and prosperity.

In order to do that, we have to have a healthy travel and tourism industry. And by next year when the eyes of the world are on America in a clear and focused and open-hearted way, I want to know that you and I together have done everything we can to make sure that one of the things those eyes take away from the sight of the Olympics is a deep, yearning desire to come to America and to be with us in friendship and partnership as we pave the way for greater opportunity for these young people in the 21st century.

Thank you, and God bless you all.

The post The 1995 Clinton speech that should have changed the U.S. travel industry, but didn’t appeared first on Skift.

It’s newest product is the Converse X Ace White Pro Leather High Tops. The hotel and fashion brands teamed up to design the limited edition sneaker made of sheep skin and Nubuck suede. The white-and-cream colored shoe is covered in a perforated “A” pattern and its tongue is stamped with the words “Converse for Ace Hotel.”

This is not the first shoe that Ace Hotel has branded. Ace fanboys can purchase branded havaianas with a pin of the Ace Palm Spring coyote mascot, branded Tretorn rain boots, and branded Generic Surplus pool shoes.

Hotel guests can purchase the shoe at any of the Ace’s properties in New York, Portland, Palm Springs, and Seattle or online for $120.

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