Brand USA’s 47-to-1 Return on Investment Claim Attracts Doubts Even Among Supporters

With Brand USA looking to get re-authorized by Congress for 2015, the official U.S. tourism-marketing group commissioned a study that claims it produced $47 in international visitor receipts for every $1 it spent in marketing -- a return on investment that even the group's supporters say defies belief. Travel industry analyst and researcher Henry Harteveldt calls Oxford Economics' 47 to 1 ROI calculation attributed to Brand USA "disingenuous" and "incredibly aggressive." Joe Buhler, a tourism consultant and former North America director of Switzerland Tourism, says the Oxford Economics analysis is "hard to prove or disprove but not entirely satisfactory," adding he's always skeptical about "numbers claiming billions of dollars of directly attributable spending, especially to brand marketing." A tourism official who declined to be identified because the official's group partners with Brand USA, read the Oxford Economics study [embedded below], and labels its claims "overstated.