the April 2009 Issue in PDF Format - Trade Show Executive

News
Continued from page 8
Travel Promotion Act to be
Re-Introduced in Congress
By Hil Anderson, senior editor
Washington, DC – The Travel Promotion
Act, which has the backing of the trade
show industry as a means of both
promoting travel to the U.S. and making
it easier for visitors to navigate the visa
process, is expected to be resurrected in
Congress in the near future.
Geoff Freeman, senior vice president
of public affairs at the U.S. Travel
Association (USTA), said March 16 that
the measure would be introduced in the
Senate “in a matter of days.”
The previous incarnation of the bill
passed the House of Representatives
last year, but died in the Senate as the
congressional term expired.
Freeman said the USTA was
optimistic that the new measure would
be enacted in 2009.
“We expect it to be re-introduced in
the Senate in the coming days,” Freeman
told Trade Show Executive. “We expect it
to begin moving and have a White House
that is not only an ally on it but also a
champion.”
Freeman said President Obama was
By Hil Anderson, senior editor
Washington, DC – Saying business travel
was “under siege” by ill-informed
politicians and the media, the business
travel industry launched a new website
and outreach campaign to pitch the
benefits of meetings and events.
The MeetingsMeanBusiness.com site that
debuted March 5 is meant as a resource
for the travel industry in its campaign to
keep a positive image of business travel
and fend off any potential restriction
originating in Washington.
“We are under siege,” said Jonathan
Tisch, chairman of Loews Hotels and
the U.S. Travel Association (USTA), part
of a coalition of industry associations
that is behind MeetingsMeanBusiness.com.
The MeetingsMeanBusiness site includes
among the congressional co-sponsors
of the Travel Promotion Act last year as
was Vice President Joe Biden and other
lawmakers who have since moved from
Congress to Obama’s cabinet.
The Travel Promotion Act would
create a not-for-profit corporation to
market the U.S. to overseas visitors and
provide educational materials that would
help international tourists as well as trade
show exhibitors and attendees with the
paperwork needed to obtain a travel visa.
The program would be funded by a
$10 charge for each visa request made
by citizens from countries that do not
currently pay a visa fee.
The act was a major topic of
discussion at a March 11 meeting
between Obama and a delegation of
travel industry executives led by the
USTA. “The president had some specific
questions about it,” Freeman said. “We
think this is something the White House
supports and we look forward to getting
it done.”
Reach Geoff Freeman at (202) 408-
8422 or gfreeman@ustravel.org
USTA Launches Website, Ad Campaign to
Counter Anti-Travel Rhetoric
economic-impact data for each state.
Roger Dow, president and CEO of the
USTA, said work was underway to nail
down more-specific information about
the number of meetings cancelled for
public relations reasons. “When you
have the dollar value of these meetings
available and how it is tied to jobs, it is
very important,” he said.
In a conference call with industry
leaders, Tisch said criticism of various
meetings sponsored by struggling
financial firms had led to “corrosive
rhetoric from elected leaders who don’t
necessarily know what they are talking
about.”
Such rhetoric, along with media
coverage of business events involving
firms receiving Federal financial
Nevada Legislature
Passes 3% Hike
in Occupancy Tax
By Hil Anderson, senior editor
Las Vegas, NV – The Nevada
Legislature on March 10 passed a
3% hike in the occupancy tax that
will impact hotels in Clark and Reno
Counties and pump an estimated
$200 million annually into the
general fund.
Local media reported Governor
Jim Gibbons said he would neither
sign nor veto the bill. Thus, by law,
the new increase - which raised the
occupancy tax from 9% to 12% -
took effect five days after the vote,
on March 15.
At least one-third of the new
revenue will go to aid Nevada public
schools, a worthy cause that is
difficult to oppose.
But the vote came the same
week the $980 million expansion of
the Las Vegas Convention Center
was formally put on hold for at least
a year due to the tourism slump and
accompanying decline in the same
hotel tax revenues.
The situation has trade show
organizers worried that with a
tourism-savvy state such as Nevada
voting to increase room taxes, other
major destination cities will give in to
the same temptation to tap into the
exhibition market to make up their
budget shortfalls.
The focus on local politics was
evident in Carson City when the
Nevada tax increase was debated by
the state Senate. Media reports from
the capital said the objections to
the increase did not revolve around
the impact on tourism but rather
how the spoils would be divided up
among Nevada’s counties.
Reach Chris Meyer, vice
president, convention sales for the
Las Vegas Convention and Visitors
Authority, at (702) 892-2855 or
cmeyer@lvcva.com
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