Articles tagged “usta”

The U.S. Travel Association just shared its new policy recommendations for a faster tourism recovery: invest in infrastructure and air travel technology, support Brand USA, and avoid imposing travel bans, quarantines, and domestic air travel testing. Ball is in your court, White House, and Congress.

A handful of travel leaders were quick to condemn the violence and terror that we all witnessed among Donald Trump's supporters on Wednesday in Washington. The top execs' bottom line: It's not who we are.

The travel industry at long last gets an audience with Donald Trump. Let's hope it results in more than just a perfunctory, handshake photo-op.

It's interesting to watch the typically harmonious U.S. tourism industry break out into conflict on issues like this.

Improvements to aviation infrastructure are necessary if the U.S. plans to stay at the lead. It's simply a matter of who will pay.

It looks like it's a lose-lose for U.S. employers who are stingy with their vacation policies, and overworked employees eventually have the last laugh when they receive their vacation compensation payouts when they leave their companies.

Ensuring adequate competition in airports large and small gives those airports more negotiating power against the big three national carriers, and could ensure adequate infrastructure for more visitors from abroad to spend their travel dollars in the US. This last is, after all, the mandate of organizations like the US Travel Association.

Making it easier to travel U.S. is tied to the visa regime and border security, which in turn is heavily influenced by immigration reforms. Also U.S. travel orgs need more manpower to help grow them, and in turn grow jobs all around. All of this should be on the table in immigration reform debates.

Even though these numbers augur well for the general travel industry, boosting travel jobs is heavily dependent on boosting U.S. tourism, and a lot of work needs to be done on that, including making U.S. a more welcoming place for all kinds of international travelers.

The U.S. isn't immune from rest of the world, and 2013 growth slowdown is a troubling forecast. But consumer confidence is on the rise so leisure travel may carry the year through.