Arnie Weissmann:
Less
land
IN OTHER NEWS:
12
6
16
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Richard Turen: ‘O respa
56
www.travelweekly.com
Section 1 of 2
for U.S. tourism As savvy travelers increasingly shun ready-made itineraries, tour operators are delving deeper into customization. BY MICHELLE BARAN PAGE 18By Bill Poling and Michelle Baran MAY 14, 2012
THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY
[ AIMS TO GROW FOREIGN VISITORS ]
Administration
lays out its plan
WASHINGTON — Officials charged with
developing a National Travel and Tourism
Strategy for the Obama administration delivered their final product last week and set a
goal of boosting annual international arrivals to the U.S. from the current 62 million to
100 million by 2021.
‘In just weeks, the Obama
administration developed a
policy that we’ve been talk-
ing about for 16 years.’
Those visitors would spend an estimated
$250 billion a year, up from about $153 billion a year today.
At a White House press conference in
the middle of National Travel and Tourism
Week, Commerce Secretary John Bryson said
the strategy would also encourage Americans
to travel “within the U.S. and its territories,”
while committing the government to work
on facilitating international inbound travel
by reducing barriers and opening markets.
T W ILLUS TRA TION B Y THOMAS R LECHLEI TER
Bryson, along with Interior Secretary Ken
Salazar, spearheaded the development of the
strategy as co-chairs of the Task Force on
Travel and Competitiveness that President
Obama created in January.
A stated part of the strategy is to “
emphasize travel and tourism as a U.S. government
priority,” and to that end, Bryson said the
Commerce Department will enhance its ability to work with the industry by developing a
new National Travel and Tourism Office.
A spokesman later explained that this will
involve a revamping and renaming of the
existing Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, currently a unit of the department’s International Trade Administration.
The 33-page strategy document calls for
renewed efforts to enhance several existing
See WASHINGTON on Page 8
Assembly required
Hotels scramble to make pools accessible
By Danny King
A looming deadline for hotels to
install permanent lifts on all their
pools and Jacuzzis to accommodate
disabled guests is becoming a growing source of aggravation for many
U.S. hoteliers.
But to Irv Segal, it is a thing of beauty.
Segal’s Guided Tour Inc. in Elkins Park,
Pa., has specialized in coordinating trips for
mentally and physically handicapped people
for four decades. Segal himself gets around
in a wheelchair, and he insists that all warm-
weather U.S. hotels that he and his company
patronize have poolside chair lifts that make
it easier for his clients to go swimming.
See POOLS on Page 58
