The US Travel Association has highlighted its commitment to the industry and inbound travellers to the United States through its creation of the Commission on Seamless and Secure Travel. The Commission was established, in part, to tackle a range of inefficiencies with visa and customs processing times and baggage rescreening on entry to the United States, viewed as major pain points for international travellers.
Geoff Freeman, President and CEO of the US Travel Association said those “challenges” detract inbound tourists from considering travel to the United States and that other countries were capitalising on the entry hurdles by “stealing” potential visitors.
Speaking at IPW 2024 in Los Angeles this morning, Freeman said that while the US remains the world’s most desired nation to visit, international visitor numbers in 2023 are only at 84% of where they were pre-pandemic.
“When you look at travel as an export, before the pandemic, we had a 12 billion travel trade surplus. At the end of last year, we had about a $50 billion travel trade deficit. So we have serious problems on the international inbound travel side that we have to resolve,” he said frankly.
Freeman noted some bugbears are beyond the control of tourism officials, such as the strength of the US dollar and limitations on flying over Russian airspace, viewed as a major inhibitor for bringing Asian travellers to the United States.
“But there’s a lot we can do on issues that we control. Like visa wait times, customs inefficiencies, the challenges travellers have when trying to make a connection and having to re-screen their bags when coming into the United States,” he said.
Based on research undertaken by the organisation, when compared against top competitors from around the world in terms of facilitation, government investment, leadership and various other issues, the United States ranked 17th of the 18 top travel countries based on competitiveness for visitors.
Freeman used the example of Colombia and Mexico which have wait times of over 600 and 800 days respectively for an interview with the US Consulate, the first step to getting into the country for those markets. He said that improvements can be made, citing India’s wait time had been reduced to 150-200 days, and Brazil, which was over 500 days and is now just 21 and has become a powerhouse source market for the US.
“It shows us that it can be done when the State Department uses their ingenuity, gets creative, puts resources in the right places, this problem can be solved but it’s been going on for far too long. It needs to be solved now.
“We have challenged the Administration to set a goal of 30 days or less to process all visas at any consulate around the world,” he revealed.
In the Customs space, Freeman drew attention to arriving visitors waiting more than two hours to enter the country, many after spending up to 14 hours flying there.
“There’s nothing more predictable than when planes are going to land. We can staff appropriately. We can use technology.”
“We can demonstrate a commitment to addressing these issues,” Freeman said.
“And when it comes to the re-screening of bags at L.A.X and wanting to transfer to another port in the United States, it is a massive inconvenience for travellers to go through customs, collect their bags and then have to go rescreen their bags at the TSA checkpoint to make their connection.”
“There are solutions and its solutions we are setting out to solve,” the US Travel Association chief said.
Freeman said that other countries around the globe realise changes have to be made to attract travellers. Destinations such as Turkey, the UK, and Canada are already putting in place steps to attract visitors.
“They’re looking at the countries where we have long visa wait times and they’re allowing those travellers to enter visa-free. They’re looking at opportunities to allow people to keep their shoes on, their liquids in their bags when they go through security screening. It’s those types of steps that are going to make those countries more competitive.”
“It’s those types of steps that are going to steal travellers from the United States.”
Freeman said new technology at Atlanta International Airport can speed people through the TSA checkpoints in six seconds or less. Customs and Border Protection officials at Los Angeles International Airport this week have also showcased their latest technology and efforts being taken to bring more visitors through automated screening, avoiding the necessity to meet customs officials, meaning faster entry into the USA.
If those obstacles can be overcome, Freeman is confident the US will “get our fair share of travellers, will ensure that we not only get back to where we were pre-pandemic but that we skyrocket beyond that.”
“We get to 100 million, we get to 110 million. We become not just the world’s most desired nation to visit but the world’s most visited destination as well.”
To address the USA’s competitiveness issues, US Travel established the Commission on Seamless and Secure Travel in January which aims to create a vision and recommend policies to improve government focus and coordination on travel issues.
Last month, Commission members highlighted key opportunities for Congress, particularly in preparation for major events including the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.
On a panel discussion with Freeman today, two Commission members, Kevin McAleenan, Co-Chair and the former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, and Patty Cogswell, the former Deputy Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said they were proponents of digital ID and facial recognition technology, due to its ability to handle both facilitation and security in the one move.
“It is significantly more accurate than a human looking at a physical ID, it automatically aligns with your travel record and it gives the customer the ability to control their own destiny,” Cogswell said.
She was also a fan of ways to integrate airport wayfinding, end-to-end wait times and the ability to upgrade some of the screening technology with better algorithms so that it’s possible to shift the luggage to review only the things that you know are problematic as opposed to looking at every bag.”
McAleenan agreed one of the biggest pain points was the re-screening of luggage at the US gateway city when connecting to another destination. He said that process of collecting and re-checking luggage doesn’t happen in most competitive destinations, where baggage doesn’t need to be re-screened.
“Technology can solve that problem. Biometrics is safer, faster.
“The same thing is being developed for baggage and security screening,” he said.
McAleenan said an image taken of a bag can have an AI algorithm evaluate whether it violates any security screenings, which would allow the bag to move smoothly “tail to tail” on the tarmac or any aviation security process. That’s going to be a huge advantage for travellers and a much better for the system.”
He said countries in the European Union are already moving quickly in the AI space for visitor arrivals. Nations there are creating regimes to “approve, adopt and enhance the use of automated artificial intelligence technology in aviation security processes.”
LATTE is reporting from Los Angeles courtesy of IPW and Fiji Airways.
