Travel Surges Ahead as Economy Slumps

Travel continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments of the nation’s economy, with domestic and foreign visitors having spent $350 billion on travel last year, 7% more than in 1988.

“The travel industry has doubled in sales receipts since 1980,” says Suzanne D. Cook, executive director of the U.S. Travel Data Center, a nonprofit research affiliate of the Travel Industry Assn. of America. “It is the third-largest U.S. retail industry and the second-largest in terms of employment.”

Over the past decade, the number of people employed by the travel industry grew 43%, more than twice the growth rate for all U.S. industries, according to the center’s “1989-90 Economic Review of Travel in America.”

The report claimed that travel spending in the United States directly generated 5.8 million jobs in 1989, paying nearly $74 billion in wages. It also produced $43 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue.

Travel industry employment, which generates more jobs than any other industry except health services, grew 2.5% last year.

In 1989, the number of foreign visitors to the United States reached a record high of 38 million, up 12% from the previous year. Their expenditures totaled $34 billion and generated 570,000 jobs, the report said.

Quick Fact: It is illegal to hunt camels in Arizona.

Chinese Puzzle: The Asian Games, Beijing’s chance to charm the world after last year’s massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators, has attracted fewer tourists than expected, and hotels see no early end to a business slump.

Hotel and tourism officials said that after a flurry for the Games’ opening ceremony Sept. 22, tourists were leaving China without attending the events--and even the initial rush of visitors was smaller than expected.

Gleaming hotels built for the Games would only add to Beijing’s chronic oversupply of luxury rooms once China’s first international showcase event was over, they said.

“So far the number of tourists coming here for the Games has been a disappointment,” said a senior Beijing tourist official who declined to be identified. “It seems that even with the Games, the number of tourists coming to China this year may be less than in the peak year of 1988.”

In the first six months of this year, China recorded 13 million people on tourist visas, 12% fewer than during the same period in 1988, and a 2.2% drop from the first six months of 1989.

“The biggest problem is that we seem to have lost the market of American and European tour groups. Of course, that is related to what happened last year,” the official added.

China spent more than $530 million on facilities for the Asian Games, which end today.

Mediterranean Crossing: A new ferry service for passengers and freight has been established linking Turkey, Greece and Italy.

Minoan Lines of Crete operates the ferry, the Ariadne, which calls at Kusadasi in Turkey, Samos, Paros, Piraeus and Cephalonia in Greece, and Ancona in Italy.

Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters?: Exxon Corp. has given $7 million to the Alaska Visitors Assn. for a national television advertising campaign to bring back visitors who may have been scared away by last year’s Exxon oil spill.

The oil company last summer contributed to a print and broadcast ad campaign that tourism officials say was responsible for convincing 11,000 people to visit Alaska despite an initial reticence.

Karen Cowart, the association’s director, said this summer’s tourist season has been strong, although some fishing lodges report lingering effects from fishermen still angered by the spill. Studies have suggested the spill may have cost Alaska nearly $20 million in lost tourist spending last year.

Tourist Plan: The Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority has developed a contingency plan to draw tourists if the price of gasoline rises to $2 a gallon or if the nation falls into a recession.

Barry Parrish, marketing chief for the authority, said the as-yet-undetermined cost of the special marketing program would be shared by the governmental authority and local hotel-casinos. Part of it calls for boosting newspaper advertising in the chief markets of San Francisco, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest.

Parish said visitor count for the first seven months of the year is up by 7% compared to a year ago, but there is a fear that rising gasoline prices may dampen the tourist business in the coming months.