Crossing the Line 5-1-2007

In the past five and a half years, it has become a cliche to point out that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “changed everything.” But in so many aspects, the events of that morning did forever alter the fabric and rhythms of American life. Also transformed was the process for entering the United States for foreign visitors, even for short business stays like attendance at a corporate meeting or an association convention.

While world travel in the past five years has jumped 20 percent, post-9/11 entry procedures have made visiting the United States more of a hassle, no doubt contributing to a 17 percent drop in international visitation to this country during that same time frame. In a survey conducted in fall 2006 by the Washington, D.C.-based Discover America Partnership, international travelers rated the United States’ entry process the worst in the world, by a 2-to-1 margin.

Today, the business travel community is looking for fixes -- and meeting and convention planners increasingly are concerned with making their international attendees feel more welcome, ready and able to attend U.S.-based events.

Speedier visas needed

“The majority of our difficulties are with visa applications,” says Sapna Budev, manager for international affairs and trade show operations with the Alexandria, Va.-based International Sign Association. “With visas, attendees either register too late and need their visa letters expedited -- which creates considerable administrative work for us -- or they get denied their visa applications based on insufficient proof of home-country ties.”

Such entry problems have a snowball effect, requiring higher levels of staffing, steeper printing costs and more work on the part of planners. “Many attendees cannot understand our online registration process and need phone support to finish their travel and registration plans,” notes Budev. “And we do not have enough multilingual staff or vendors to deal with all these issues.”

The key document for visitors and meeting attendees from many nations is the B-1 visa -- essentially, a six-month permit typically used by attendees. (This visa is not required of citizens of the 27 countries that are members of the Visa Waiver Program -- mostly close U.S. allies that agree to issue biometric-enabled passports.) But for millions of potential attendees from around the world, yet another document is vital.

“Foreign visitors almost always need to obtain a visa from their own country, and that can be problematic,” says Candace Murray, conference planner with the Orlando-based International Association for Identification. “We need to issue a letter of invitation that not infrequently gets lost in the mail, especially in third-world countries. There has, over the years, been some misinterpretation of those letters of invitation, where the registrant assumes the IAI will cover all costs of attendance.”

And then, attendees face the wait. The Washington, D.C.-based National Academies’ International Visitors Office tracks a large sample of visa applications, wait times and rates of visa denial. The delays for these applicants in 2003 help explain the drop in visitation to America: According to the NAIVO, the average wait that year for a B-1 visa following an interview or application was 149 days. Further, 30 percent of visa applicants were kept waiting more than six months.

“Attendees from Asia and the Middle East are having a harder time getting in,” says Michael Starkweather, CMM, an association planner with more than 25 years of experience bringing international attendees into the United States. “It’s not as true for Europe, but the visa process has tightened up in all directions.

“In the hospitality industry, you’re supposed to be greeting people as guests, not as a potential terrorists,” Starkweather adds. “But that attitude has crept into it.”

Cutting the wait

Some planners are taking matters into their own hands by urging consular officials to speed the visa process for their inbound attendees.

“We have worked with the Department of Commerce and the State Department to try to counteract these measures,” says planner Budev of the International Sign Association. “If you send an e-mail to [email protected] with pertinent details of your show, it seems to help the consular officers review and accept visa applications.”

And lately, there is some good news for planners and visa applicants. Wait times have become shorter in recent years. In 2006, according to the National Academies, the percentage of cases that took more than 90 days to resolve was down to 11 percent. Even better, the percentage of cases taking six months or more to resolve had dropped from 30 to zero. And the average delay for a B-1 visa was down to 58 days -- still requiring international attendees to plan far in advance, but better than the four to five months of limbo such applicants faced in 2003.

In all, international visitors’ chances of being granted visas are good. Between fall 2002 and summer 2006, of 3,032 visa cases tracked by the National Academies, 87 percent were granted. Yet, planners assert that these numbers could be better still. “If the State Department would be more proactive in their communication to associations about how we can provide proof of registered attendees, I think more visa applications would be accepted,” says Budev.

Moreover, meetings industry groups are becoming increasingly aggressive in informing meeting planners on how to clear the hurdles when bringing in foreign attendees.

“We keep members apprised of the restrictions and challenges involved [in obtaining visas], and make sure they are providing their attendees the best information,” says Deborah Sexton, president and CEO of the Chicago-based Professional Convention Management Association. “If a letter of invitation is necessary, they need to get that out in a timely fashion. They need to inform attendees of the requirements. We’re trying to be proactive in that regard. We’ve held sessions on it and will continue to do so.”

US-VISIT

Another post-9/11 burden for foreign conventioneers, meeting attendees and other business travelers is the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program, known by its acronym as US-VISIT. This requires foreign nationals coming to the United States to have two index fingers digitally scanned and a digital photograph taken. Additionally, visitors’ names are submitted to a background check against government lists of criminals and known terrorists. Then the biometric information is used to verify their travel documents at the port of entry, where a visitor must again submit to a finger scan and a digital picture.

At first, the program applied only to visitors to the United States on visas. But on Sept. 30, 2004, US-VISIT grew to include short-term travelers hailing from countries in the Visa Waiver Program, which includes the nationals of Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Singapore. Additionally, under the USA Patriot Act, these nations must issue national machine-readable passports containing biometric data.

Today, participation in US-VISIT is mandatory for all visitors to the United States, with limited exceptions such as Canadian nationals and Mexicans who hold “laser visas” and other forms of identification. Americans themselves currently are not required to enroll.

While the intention of the program is to ensure the identity of foreigners entering the United States, it has raised the hackles of foreign visitors who feel the fingerprinting and photography requirements treat them like criminals.

“US-VISIT comes off as very heavy-handed,” says association planner Starkweather. “If you were a guest coming here, how would you feel about being fingerprinted and photographed? It’s not a very welcoming activity.”

Indeed, some nations have balked at the requirements of US-VISIT. For instance, in 2003, Brazil asked that its citizens be made exempt from US-VISIT procedures. When the request was denied, that country began fingerprinting and taking pictures of American citizens arriving in Brazil. Brazilian federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva said US-VISIT was “xenophobic” and violated “human dignity.”

The program also can cause inconvenience and expense for travelers to the United States, since the US-VISIT requirements necessitate an in-person visit to a U.S. consulate, along with other costs for a visa. Since consulates tend to be in major cities, those living in smaller cities and towns must first take a journey within their own countries to get to offices where they can enroll in US-VISIT.

Passport hassles

Among the security initiatives criticized as impediments to visitation to and from the United States, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative perhaps is most often blamed for hurting business and leisure travel. A provision of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, WHTI mandates that those entering the United States from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Bermuda, and South and Central America present passports at U.S. ports of entry.

The passport requirement even extends to American citizens returning from destinations within the Western Hemisphere. On Jan. 23, the WHTI passport requirement went into effect for air travelers after several changes in the deadline. At press time, the document requirement is expected to extend to all those making border crossings by land and sea on Jan. 1, 2008 -- although with WHTI, the deadlines seem perennially to be subject to change.

“How many times did they delay the passport requirement for Canada and Mexico?” asks planner Starkweather.

Indeed, when PCMA held its annual meeting in Toronto in January, the planners’ association grappled with this confusion. “For one year we advised people to get their passports, and as it turned out it wasn’t necessary and the deadline had been pushed back,” says PCMA’s Sexton. “If the passport deadline had fallen when they first said, the restriction would have taken effect and our attendees would have been able to get into Canada, but would not have been able to get back into the United Sates without passports.”

Of course, the aim of WHTI is to strengthen border security and make certain that identity documents used at ports of entry are standardized and secure. For some time, this had not been
the case: Before WHTI, travelers could present an array of driver’s licenses, locally issued birth certificates and other hard-toverify documents. Even an oral declaration of nationality was enough to get into the United States in some instances.

While the goal of secure borders is almost universally shared, critics point to problems with WHTI. For the meetings industry, there might be a disincentive to hold conventions and events in Canada, Mexico and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. That is because so few Americans -- just 70 million, an estimated quarter of the eligible population, according to the Department of State -- hold valid passports, and the hassle and expense of obtaining them could deter many from attending international events, even those relatively close to home.

A passport costs $67, and with the standard $30 “execution fee” tacked on, the price of the document comes to $97. For an expedited passport, an additional $60 fee applies, perhaps with overnight delivery costs on top of that.

Trade and travel with Canada, America’s biggest trading partner, is seen as particularly vulnerable under WHTI. While the number of passport applications and issuances is growing, in part due to WHTI, critics see a disaster in the making for commerce and business travel between the United States and its neighbor to the north.

“WHTI is a looming crisis that has the potential to greatly harm the strong and mutually beneficial relationship America has long shared with Canada,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) in a recent statement. “We can have a smart and secure shared border, but only if the Departments of Homeland Security and State take a step back and realize that their current plan will devastate cross-border travel and trade.”

There have been some concessions to those who ask for more lenient rules at the border. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently agreed to exempt children 15 and younger from WHTI. Additionally, alternative forms of identification, such as the Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection, NEXUS, and Free and Secure Trade cards, plus the laser visa for Mexicans entering the United States from contiguous territory, have been developed. However, passports still will be the document of choice for most who do not live in a border community or drive a truck that makes frequent border crossings.

Because of the low percentage of passport holders and the cost and difficulty of securing passports, many in the business travel community are urging changes to the law. For instance, the Protecting American Commerce and Travel Act, or PACT Act, co-authored by Rep. Slaughter and Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), would help blunt WHTI’s impact on trade and tourism with Canada. The act extends passport deadlines further and creates more access to identification alternatives at the border, such as the NEXUS Highway, NEXUS Marine, and NEXUS Air programs. Many travel and business groups are actively lobbying for the measure, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Travel Industry Association of America and the Binational Tourism Alliance.

Better days ahead?

There are some positive trends in the numbers. In March, the U.S. Commerce Department projected that, for the first time in seven years, more international travelers will visit the United States in 2007 than in 2000. If so, that will be a record number of international visitors. Indeed, the department’s international travel forecast projects a 21 percent increase in foreign travelers over the next five years, to 61.6 million visitors in 2011. And those visitors won’t be from just Canada and Mexico; the growth is predicted to come from South America, led by Brazil (with Brazilian visitors to the United States up 28 percent), and Asia, led by China (60 percent), with visitors from India rising by 28 percent.

“International travel to the United States continues to show growth over growth as it reaches near-record highs in the number of international visitors to our country,” said Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, in a statement issued with the forecast. “The travel and tourism industry is key to generating new jobs...and in further strengthening the U.S. economy.” In addition, Gutierrez announced that 51.1 million international visitors traveled to the United States in 2006, with nine countries breaking previous records, and an overall increase of four percent over 2005.

Some meeting planners have noted this bump in foreign attendance as well. “Our show increases in size yearly, and the amount of foreign visitors has gone from 10 percent of total attendees to 18 percent of attendees,” says Budev of the International Sign Association. “Since the total number of attendees also increases annually, this percentage is not completely indicative of the higher incremental attendance of foreign visitors, so it is our highest growth market.”

At press time, legislation was under consideration in Congress that would further ease foreign visitation. Titled the “Improving America’s Security by Implementing Unfinished Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007,” the bill includes proposals from the $703 billion travel industry, led by the Travel Business Roundtable and the Travel Industry Association. For instance, the bill contains amendments that would create “model ports” designed for efficient processing of foreign travelers at the top 20 U.S. airports, and it would provide funds for 200 more customs and border protection officers at those ports of entry. Other amendments to the act would strengthen and expand the Visa Waver Program and fully implement US-VISIT to track the exit of visiting foreign nationals.

Key to the bill is the idea that visitors to the United States are more likely to like this country. For instance, the Discover America Partnership has found that international travelers who have spent time in America are 74 percent more likely to have a favorable opinion of the nation.

On this note, Roger J. Dow, president and CEO of the Travel Industry Association, said in a release, “Being a secure nation should not exclude us from being a welcoming nation. The proposed legislation is key to improving our nation’s visa and entry problems and will help remedy our image around the world.”