President Obama’s U.S. Travel Legacy After Eight Years as Tourist-in-Chief
Skift Take
Few other presidents have done as much for the U.S. travel industry as President Obama and by many measures he will hand Donald Trump a healthy and growing industry. But some of the Obama Administration's tourism goals — programs and initiatives — while steps in the right direction, still leave plenty to be desired and require renewed efforts.
No matter which side of the aisle you stand on, there's no arguing that some of the most memorable moments of U.S. President Barack Obama's presidency involve his more than 156 trips abroad to more than 50 countries.
In the past year, the president made historic visits to Hiroshima, Japan; Havana, Cuba; and Hanoi, Vietnam that embodied the unofficial "tourist-in-chief" moniker he's earned during his eight years in office. He's logged more than half a million miles of travel on Air Force One and last year brought U.S. National Parks back into the spotlight for their centennial anniversary when the First Family visited Yosemite National Park in June.
Under Obama and his administration, the Travel Promotion Act that created Brand USA — the country's first national marketing arm — was signed into law in 2010, more countries joined the visa waiver program, visa wait times were slashed, the TSA PreCheck program was created and the Global Entry program was expanded, and the numb
