Executive Editor Lisa Grimaldi sat down with Kevin Hinton, the U.S. Travel Association’s managing director for group travel, to learn how the United States is leveraging the image boost the country received from hosting the FIFA World Cup, as well as how U.S. Travel is working to enhance the international attendee experience, discourage governmental barriers to the visa process and more.
Among the points discussed were:
- Positive visitor reaction and social media posts from FIFA attendees are boosting the country’s reputation with international travelers.
- U.S. Travel is working on ways to extend the FIFA fast-track visa, available to FIFA ticket-holders, for other types of visitors, including international attendees to meetings and events held in the United States.
- U.S. meetings business remains robust, even though leisure travel is down.
- Enhancements to visitor arrivals: biometric IDs, upgrades to airport technology and other developments are speeding up processing.
U.S. Travel is lobbying the government to prevent $250 visa-entry fees — which are the most expensive in the world — and to eliminate the proposed social media and data vetting that would require applicants for Customs’ Electronic System for Travel Authorization to submit up to 5 years of social media history, 10 years of email addresses, expanded biometric and family data.
