Government tips

Destination DC will be aggressively promoting Washington’s unique attractions and experiences in a $20 million campaign set to launch Wednesday.

The U.S. can’t effectively compete for tourists if there isn’t energy at the federal level toward tackling issues like excessive visa wait times, upgrading outdated airports and staffing the TSA and FAA.

Multiple Colorado counties and towns approved ballot measures on November 8 to shift lodging tax revenue—a key funding source for tourism promotion— toward local community initiatives. The passage of the measures underscore the Skift megatrend that communities are no longer spectators in travel.

International inbound travel to the U.S. is projected to be at 63 percent and 75 percent of its pre-pandemic volume in 2022 and 2023, respectively, according to the U.S. Travel Association’s biannual forecast. At this rate, international travel won’t reach pre-pandemic levels until 2025.

The U.S. Travel Association has launched a website to highlight the negative impact of long visitor visa interview wait times—which now exceed an average of 400 days—is having on global travelers and U.S. businesses. Called USVisaDelays.com, the website lists stories of those affected, loss in industry spending, visitor wait times, impacted markets and a policy fact sheet. 

Multiple state tourism agencies ended their growing participation on the short-form video sharing platform TikTok to comply with their state executive orders. As they exit, they plan to move the resources allocated for TikTok into their other social media channels.

The U.S. travel industry will soon have an official voice at the highest levels of federal policymaking under the newly-created assistant secretary of travel and tourism. 

A group of more than 120 U.S. lawmakers told the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) its computer outage on Wednesday that disrupted 11,000 flights was “completely unacceptable” and demanded the agency explain how it will avoid future incidents.

A group of 15 U.S. senators on Friday demanded Southwest Airlines Chief Executive Bob Jordan answer questions about the low-cost carrier’s holiday meltdown that led to nearly 16,000 flight cancellations.

American embassies are working around the clock to bring down the amount of time international travelers have to wait to get a visitor visa interview in order to travel to the U.S., according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services Julie Stufft. The global median wait time for a B-1 or B-2 visa, also known as a visitor visa, has been reduced from 17 weeks in June to five weeks now. 

Airline passengers who have long felt squished in cramped seats suffered a setback on Friday as a U.S. appeals court refused to order the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to adopt minimum requirements for seat size and spacing.

U.S. visitor visa wait times remain over 400 days on average for first-time visa applicants from top inbound markets, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

International travel to the U.S. has been recovering faster since the U.S. lifted its vaccine requirement for inbound travelers in May, said Brand USA CEO and President Chris Thompson at a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday. The absence of China, however, will prevent a full recovery.

The U.S. Department of Commerce is ready to staff the office for the newly-created assistant secretary for travel and tourism. It just needs the money from Congress to do it, said Brian Beall, acting deputy assistant secretary for travel and tourism and director of the National Travel and Tourism Office, at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

Canada’s tourism sector could experience a wave of business shutdowns in the next few years. The main problem: Companies there took on piles of debt during the pandemic, and now they’re cash strapped because international travel has been sluggish and operational costs are rising.

The U.S. has kick-started a multi-year infrastructure boom, but too much of it is focused on airports, reckons Bill Hornbuckle, CEO and President of MGM Resorts International.

Pakistan plans to privatize its loss-making national carrier Pakistan International Airlines, the government said on Monday, as the country also seeks to outsource its airport operations in line with an IMF deal.

JetZero, which has won U.S. Air Force backing to build a demonstrator for a futuristic aircraft, expects a projected 50% cut in fuel consumption to open the doors of the airline industry as well the Pentagon, its chief executive said.

Washington lawmakers are flyers, too. Frequent flyers in most cases.

In the latest blow to Cuba tourism, the U.S. Department of the Treasury today issued new restrictions on travel to the island nation.

If you closely followed the debate leading up to the American-US Airways merger, you’ll recall a period during which it seemed a safe bet that the Department of Justice would nix the tie-up on antitrust grounds. DOJ officials signaled that, after signing off on mergers between United and Continental, Delta and Northwest, and Southwest and AirTran, further consolidation was likely to impede competition and give the airlines outsize pricing power. And it was their duty to forestall just such an outcome.