Interview with Roger Dow, President U.S. Travel Association

At last week’s International Pow Wow Convention in Miami Florida, the President of the U.S. Travel association, Roger Dow spoke of how the economic downturn has affected inbound tourism to his country. Mr Dow said the number of international tourist to the USA dropped by 633,000 in the twelve months to April this year and he expected the trend to continue for the foreseeable future. In fact, Mr Dow said that inbound tourism has not recovered in the eight years since the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York city. He also cited the latest swine flu outbreak as another factor keeping people at home.

“We are working on a number of issues to make it easier for tourists to enter America, in fact we have just employed an extra 200 immigration and customs officers at major American gateway airports to smooth the flow into our country,” he said. Mr Dow also said with low air fares being offered by the airlines and discounts by hotels and theme parks, it’s never been a better time to visit the USA. Here is an excerpt from  his speech to the foreign media.