U.S. Drops to 3rd Place as Tourist Draw, Report Says

The United States has slipped from second to third place in popularity among international tourists, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Tourism Organization.

International tourism to the United States declined 1.7% in 1995, when 44.7 million people visited the country. That was the third consecutive annual decline, and it allowed Spain to overtake the United States for second place, behind France.

Despite the decline in numbers, tourists continue to spend more money in the United States. The report said tourism receipts in the United States in 1995 were $58.4 billion, compared with $27.3 billion for France and $27 billion for Spain.

The U.S. Commerce Department was quick to seize on the tourism report as justification for keeping alive the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, an agency that the Republican-controlled Congress has targeted for elimination as early as this spring.

Greg Farmer, undersecretary of Commerce for travel and tourism, said that if the agency is closed before the summer Olympics in Atlanta, the United States will miss a prime opportunity “to capture a sizable portion of the international tourism market.”

Farmer said that “post-Olympic marketing” contributed to the increase in travel to Spain, which hosted the 1992 Summer Games and spent more than $100 million in promotions.

“That same opportunity will be ours this summer,” said Farmer “The irony, however, is that by that time, there may very well be no organization in place to take advantage of this opportunity.”

Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Commerce Department, says the agency is no long needed.

Last year, Rogers’ panel wrote legislation eliminating the tourism agency. The House and Senate passed the bill, but President Clinton vetoed it.

The fate of the agency will depend on how the federal budget battle plays out over the coming days.