The excruciatingly long wait times suffered by international travelers arriving by air into the U.S. are placing an unnecessary damper on the travel industry and the economy in general, and Congress and President Obama need to enact some key policy changes to fix it, according to a report issued by the U.S. Travel Association.
“If you look at the numbers, they’re big and they’re important. In 2012 we welcomed 66 million international visitors, but unfortunately, in many of our gateway airports, during peak times of travel those visitors would wait three to four hours to get through customs and border protection,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. “We’ve found that the long process and the long wait times have travelers telling their friends that they’re going to avoid the U.S., which could cost us 100 million travelers over five years. That’s $95 billion dollars and 518,000 jobs.”
The numbers make it a “no-brainer,” according Dow, who added that if reforms to the process were made to ensure primary inspection times did not exceed 30 minutes, the resulting influx of international visitors would generate approximately $3.5 billion in economic impact and 24,000 jobs.
Spearheading an effort to ease the international entry process, U.S. Travel issued a “Gateway to Jobs & Growth: Creating a Better Traveler Entry Process” report, which states that some 2.7 million international travelers, representing about 9 percent of potential trips, avoid visiting the U.S. annually because of the entry wait times. U.S. Travel statistics show that each overseas traveler spends an average of $4,500 per trip, so this missed opportunity translates into some $11.8 billion lost annually, according to the report.
In fact, the report states, the time standing in long lines instead of exiting the airport and contributing to the economy by spending travel dollars results in travel-related businesses losing at least $416 million each year, which could support some 3,700 jobs.
Coinciding with the report, over 70 travel leaders have sent an open letter to Congress urging improvements to the process, asking them to review the recommendations and identify the legislative vehicles that are necessary for reform. PageBreak
“All of us, as travel leaders, are calling on Congress and the Administration to improve the entry process,” said Jim Abrahamson, CEO of International Hotels and Resorts and the national Chairman of the U.S. Travel Association. “It’s plain and simple business. We do all we can at our hotels to welcome customers and give them a first-rate experience—that’s how we build our reputation and that’s what makes us successful. It’s the same thing for us as a country. We need to ensure that our inbound international travelers feel welcome from the very first moment they get here, and that’s how you build word-of-mouth and that’s how we continue to grow our presence of being the number-one travel destination. But the driver at the end of the day is all about jobs and economic growth.”
The U.S. travel industry has become a shining star in the U.S. economy, according to Dow, adding nearly 500,000 jobs since 2010, outpacing all other industries in adding jobs.
“For every 33 travelers who come here, they create one U.S. job, and it’s a job that’s not outsourceable—the bellmen, the people who work in theme parks and restaurants, etc., have to be in-place. You can’t move them to another country,” Dow said.
In fact, the U.S. travel industry has been growing especially rapidly recently, registering 8.9 percent growth in the first seven months of 2013.
“We’re growing, very quickly,” Abrahamson said. “We’re growing, in fact, six times faster than other U.S. exports of goods and services. And many of our visitors here are here not just as tourists…but they’re here in groups and meetings, conventions and trade shows to purchase American goods and services. This is tremendous economic energy—the transactional volume that’s created.”
Although he offered no firm data, Dow said that anecdotal evidence collected by U.S. Travel points to the U.S. losing major convention and trade show business from overseas groups who said they would not come back to the U.S. because of the entry hassles and delays.
To ease the burden of entry, U.S. Travel is lobbying the federal government to allocate funds to hire additional customs and border patrol (CBP) staff and increase the availability of Automated Passport Control kiosks to improve the entry process for both U.S. and international travelers.
Dow estimates that the federal government would need to spend approximately $400 million to hire an adequate number of CBP officers to decrease wait time and handle capacity sufficiently. PageBreak
“When you put it in par with $94 billion at risk, it seems like the ultimate no-brainer,” Dow said.
According to Rosemarie S. Andolino, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation and chair of U.S. Travel’s Gateway Airports Council, the addition of the new Automated Passport Control (APC) system has greatly reduced entry time at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, which is the first U.S. city to put it in place.
According to the U.S. Travel report, peak wait times at O’Hare have decreased significantly from the three hours and 45 minutes registered in November 2012.
“It’s helped us tremendously,” Andolino said of the peak wait time problem at O’Hare from last year. “When we implemented APC in July, we saw immediate results—our wait times during peak arrival periods were reduced by 33 percent, so the number of travelers waiting over 60 minutes at O’Hare has been reduced by nearly 60 percent, and the number of passengers that have to wait over 120 minutes has been almost entirely eliminated.”
In addition, connections between airlines [are improved],” Andolino said. “Misconnects [between international airlines] decreased by 62 percent with this new system, and for American airlines, by 76 percent.”
Dallas, Houston and Orlando are looking to implement similar technology, Andolino said, adding that the ability to process travelers faster could translate into upping the number of inbound international flights and carriers.
“We need to do more to get them through the lines faster,” Andolino said. “Forty-three percent of visitors to the U.S. said they would recommend avoiding a trip to the United States because of the difficulty of the entry process. While two-thirds say that getting rid of the delay times would make the U.S. a more attractive destination.”
