Hospitality Design - July 2009 - 97

the activist Jonathan Tisch Only a few months ago, as talks of bail-outs and stimulus packages flooded the news and executive compensation was the devil of the day, President Obama made an off-handed comment about Las Vegas and accidentally demonized half the hospitality industry’s business without even batting an eyelash. The industry noticed though, and Loews Hotels’ chairman and CEO Jonathan Tisch was on the first flight to Washington, DC, to tell our side of the story. “That meeting took place during the winter, when the meetings portion of our industry was under tremendous fire and stress,” says Tisch, noting he was alongside a dozen other industry leaders including InterContinental’s Jim Abrahamson, Bill Marriott, Jay Rasulo from Walt Disney, and Starwood’s Frits van Paasschen. “The president spent 30 minutes with us, and left with a much better understanding and appreciation for the travel and tourism industry.” During that meeting, the CEOs discussed not only concerns over criticism of business meetings and events, but also the Travel Promotion Act (TPA), legislation currently sitting in the Senate that would create the f irst-ever global marketing campaign for travel to the States. “This effort has been going on for a while,” says Tisch. “The Travel Business Roundtable, which I started with other industry leaders 15 years ago, became the voice on Capitol Hill for a strong and focused travel and tourism policy from our elected officials; at the end of ’08 we merged that into the Travel Industry Association,” the national non-profit representing all segments of the travel industry, to create the U.S. Travel Association, of which Tisch now serves as chairman emeritus. The centerpiece of the legislation would be for a fund that Tisch and company estimate to be about $100 million to be created on an annual basis. “These dollars would be used to market, advertise, and really publicize the United States as an in-bound international destination,” he says. The money would come at no cost to taxpayers, but rather would come from a small fee charged to people currently residing in countries that are part of the visa waiver program. “Currently these people are not paying for a visa, and every other year there would be a surcharge for them to come in the country of $10, that would be the public sector contribution. Then we would come up with a private sector match.” The benefits of having more international travelers would be both economic and diplomatic, according to Tisch. “The international traveler stays longer and they spend more money than the domestic traveler. And from a diplomatic standpoint, we know that when people from international destinations leave the United States, they have a much better appreciation for who we are as a nation and what we stand for as people.” And according to an analysis by Oxford Economics, the program could drive $4 billion annually in new spending by international travelers to the U.S. The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation has approved the bipartisan legislation, and Tisch is optimistic that the TPA has some legs this time around, as both the president and secretary of state were co-sponsors in the Senate. www.tia.org; www.loewshotels.com “The president spent 30 minutes with us, and left with a much better understanding and appreciation for the travel and tourism industry.” www.hdmag.com July 2009 97
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - July 2009
