The number of foreign visitors to the United States has plummeted since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington because foreigners don’t feel welcome, tourism professionals said Thursday.
“Since September 11, 2001, the United States has experienced a 17 percent decline in overseas travel, costing America 94 billion dollars in lost visitor spending, nearly 200,000 jobs and 16 billion dollars in lost tax revenue,” the Discover America advocacy campaign said in a statement.
Chairman Stevan Porter lamented the “extraordinary decline” in the number of overseas visitors to the United States, while the advocacy group’s executive director, Geoff Freeman, blamed the slump on the shabby welcome many foreigners feel they get in the United States.
“It’s clear what’s keeping people away in the post-9/11 environment: it is the perception around the world that travelers aren’t welcome,” Freeman told AFP.
“Travelers around the world feel the US entry experience is among the world’s worst,” Freeman said, calling on the US government to work with the private sector to make visa acquisition more efficient, the entry process traveler-friendly, and to improve communication.
Do you think it might have been the fingerprinting at customs that made them feel a little unwelcome? Or maybe the possibility of being sent to Syria for 10 months of torturing in a case of misidentity?
Just watch, tourism will be waay down next year as the 48hr pre-boarding notice rule for travelers to USA takes effect Feb., 2008. DHS/TSA will require same rule for Americans traveling within the USA.
Destroy the economy, outsource all the non-menial service jobs, and disappear anyone whose anglo saxon ancestry isn’t obvious, and before long you have a country full of rich white guys and no illegal or otherwise immigration because nobody in their right minds would want to go there.
retiring after being accused of using cocaine at Wimbledon this year? LATimes
The storied tennis career of Martina Hingis, winner of five Grand Slam singles titles, came to a stunning conclusion Thursday with two revelations: she tested positive for cocaine at Wimbledon this year and would retire, effective immediately.
“I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous that I have decided to confront it head-on by talking to the press,” Hingis said at an emotional news conference in Zurich, Switzerland. ” . . . I believe that I am absolutely, 100% innocent.”
Apparently, a follow-up hair sample test came back negative, but they downplayed the results, saying that a single use wouldn’t show up in hair. But more to the point, since when is cocaine considered a performance-enhancing drug, anyway?
Court papers released Thursday in Britney Spears’ custody dispute with Kevin Federline show she spends lavishly on clothes and entertainment, and doesn’t save or invest any of her roughly $737,000 monthly income.
Spears’ monthly expenses include $49,267 in mortgage for two houses, $16,000 for clothes and $102,000 on entertainment, gifts and vacation, according to her financial declaration.
Although she’s often photographed eating fast food, Spears declares she spends about $4,758 per month dining out. Meanwhile, she spends zero on education, savings and investments and gives $500 a month in charitable contributions, the documents said.
She has to pay her ex-husband $15,000 per month in child support and $20,000 in spousal support. Spousal support will end Nov. 15.
As for Federline, his biggest monthly expenses include $7,500 in rent and $6,000 in security, according to his financial declaration.
The dancer-turned-rapper has a comparably modest monthly budget for clothes _ just $2,000. He also spends about $5,000 on entertainment, gifts and vacation, and $1,500 eating out.
Federline earned more than a half-million dollars in 2006, mainly from entertainment and endorsement deals, but after business expenses only grossed $7,436 that year. He receives $15,000 per month in child support.
How the hell did he manage to spend all of his half-million dollars on business expenses and not have to pay taxes on anything but $7,436 of income? Who is his accountant? I’d like to hire him.
Professor Juan Cole pleas to blogsphere for some help:
“Time to Close the US Embassy”
I don’t try to start an internet campaign very often, because the blogosphere has its own priorities and logic that are democratic and should not be forced. But here is a plea for everyone in the blogging world to help force congress to save our diplomats.
Bush is trying to Shanghai several hundred foreign service officers and force them to go to Iraq. They are protesting.
[..]While all foreign service officers join knowing there will be risks, none is joining the army and typically embassies in war zones are shut down by the secretary of state and the president for precisely this reason. Foreign Service Officers are civilians. They are not combat personnel and cannot perform combat duties. Indeed, if they had any military aspect it would doom their entire mission and make them useless. They are supposed to be civilians representing the US to a foreign government.
I agree with JC, but then that would mean that BushCo would have to admit that things aren’t going so well in Iraq, and then how the hell would they justify the continued building of the new embassy compound there?
I found it very amusing yesterday when Bush tried claiming that “some politicians want to pretend we’re not at war”…isn’t he the one that declared mission accomplished? And of course, he keeps pretending the US is on the verge of winning all the time…just give it 6 more months.
The coffin of a Turkish soldier – draped in the red and white national flag – was loaded onto my plane back from the Iraq border region to Istanbul this week.
Soldiers stood and saluted as the flight took off, carrying the latest casualty in weeks of intensified clashes with the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Almost every day now the newspapers here are full of the soldiers’ life stories and pictures of their funerals. Many of those dying are young conscripts.
These casualties – and the deaths of 12 soldiers and capture of eight more in one PKK ambush in particular – are fuelling anger and frustration in Turkey.
[…]
“Something has to be done!” has become almost a catchphrase here now, from sober commentators to furious protesters on the streets.
Government under scrutiny
“The public’s patience is really running out,” says Radikal newspaper columnist Haluk Sahin. He describes himself as pessimistic about what comes next.
Last month, the Turkish parliament authorised the government to order cross-border military operations, if required.
“The Turkish government is clearly reluctant to use force in northern Iraq, but it’s under tremendous pressure to come up with something. We have seen empty promises for such a long time,” he says.
The Department of Homeland Security has been investigating for weeks whether airport screeners were tipped off in advance about upcoming security checks. Now NBC News is reporting that those tipoffs may have come from high officials in the department.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, recently revealed an email sent by a senior official at the Transportation Security Administration giving screeners all over the country very specific details about what sorts of suspicious clues the undercover testers would expect them to notice — such as ID’s with photos that did not match the people using them and boarding passes with altered dates.
.
.
Security expert David Heyman told NBC that despite the tipoffs the screeners still did poorly, and “that’s got to be very discouraging.”
what a surprise: AFP
Do you think it might have been the fingerprinting at customs that made them feel a little unwelcome? Or maybe the possibility of being sent to Syria for 10 months of torturing in a case of misidentity?
Just watch, tourism will be waay down next year as the 48hr pre-boarding notice rule for travelers to USA takes effect Feb., 2008. DHS/TSA will require same rule for Americans traveling within the USA.
can we spell POLICE STATE?
NPR said something about surly inspectors being the cause.
What’s really interesting is that people don’t want to come here, even with the plummeting value of the dollar.
It’s part of the immigration reform.
Destroy the economy, outsource all the non-menial service jobs, and disappear anyone whose anglo saxon ancestry isn’t obvious, and before long you have a country full of rich white guys and no illegal or otherwise immigration because nobody in their right minds would want to go there.
The plan is working.
retiring after being accused of using cocaine at Wimbledon this year? LATimes
Apparently, a follow-up hair sample test came back negative, but they downplayed the results, saying that a single use wouldn’t show up in hair. But more to the point, since when is cocaine considered a performance-enhancing drug, anyway?
I’m not touching that one. 🙂
Bear with me on this Britney-KFed story: AP
How the hell did he manage to spend all of his half-million dollars on business expenses and not have to pay taxes on anything but $7,436 of income? Who is his accountant? I’d like to hire him.
Disgusting isn’t it? The IRS needs to take a look at this guy.
Seeing as he and the former wife probably voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, I can’t see it happening.
showing women are being held to the same old double standards at work. Sigh.
Heavy battles in Somali capital
Professor Juan Cole pleas to blogsphere for some help:
I agree with JC, but then that would mean that BushCo would have to admit that things aren’t going so well in Iraq, and then how the hell would they justify the continued building of the new embassy compound there?
I found it very amusing yesterday when Bush tried claiming that “some politicians want to pretend we’re not at war”…isn’t he the one that declared mission accomplished? And of course, he keeps pretending the US is on the verge of winning all the time…just give it 6 more months.
Turkish anti-PKK anger mounts
Just some more conflict added to the brew…
except when they’re not.
this has got to be embarrassing even for BushCo™:
of course, lieberman’s senate committee apparently doesn’t think this is an issue.
lTMF’sA