Tourists Finding It's a Big World After All (Disney lobbies Commerce)

[Rose Siding]

...The nation's tourism industry says hostility toward the U.S. role in Iraq has kept foreigners out of the United States in droves, and security restrictions designed to keep the United States safe from terrorists are unnecessarily restrictive and stoking anti-Americanism worldwide.

In an effort to change that, representatives of the travel industry — as large as the Disney Co. and as small as the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau — are converging on Washington today to launch the Discover America Partnership, which aims to restore some of the billions of dollars in international tourism that the U.S. lost in the first half of this decade.

"Tourism is booming around the world, and we're not participating in it," said Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. He also heads the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, a group of 14 industry executives that works closely with the Commerce Department.
...
Rasulo suggested the possibility of government funding of tourism promotion, possibly in the form of an exit tax on foreigners as they leave the United States.

He said Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez had agreed to represent the travel industry in discussions with other agencies, such as the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tourism13sep13,0,6727554.story?coll=la-home-nation

Too obvious?

[NVMojo]

1. all I can do is fecking laugh ...

[nosillies]

2. Although Disney is the red-headed stepchild du jour, I hope people

look at the bigger picture. While laughing at Disney, you are also laughing at the hundreds of thousands of American workers in the hospitality industry whose jobs are tenuous at best thanks to this administration's policies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2125508#2125621

[Rose Siding]

6. That's not amusing anyone!

It just looks like Disney had a big old motive to court some Republican goodwill here. This doesn't prove that the crockudrama scandal was connected, but it sure is ironic to see how they sucked up to an administration that is doing so much damage to their own best interests.

[Howardx]

3. an exit tax on foreigners as they leave

brilliant! dee dee dee

[dipsydoodle]

7. It's not quite clear

who would pay the tax. Is it the tourists as they leave ? If so and they refuse to pay do they get transferred to a secret prison ? :)

[rmgarrette64]

9. Not a unique idea

When I lived in Japan, I had to pay an exit tax to leave. I'm not at all sure what would have happened if I didn't or couldn't pay it, as I always did pay it. I did not have to pay the tax when I left for the last time to move back to the States, I think the tax was ended by then - but am not entirely sure (I did not avidly follow Japanese tax policy then, or now for that matter...)

In any event, this is not a unique proposal.

R. Garrett

[dipsydoodle]

12. maybe not a unique proposal

just another reason to not bother going to the USA. If there any intention is to promote tourism it just seems an odd way of going about it.

[AnneD]

13. And what about those folks that are on the no fly list...

Like, can they be flown directly to Disney Land or Disney World. I can see it now...Bearded Moslem extremist men taking flight training on the Dumbo Ride. Why not just build a Disney land theme park in the middle east a la Pat Robertson. Boy, I need to up my dose of meds....I am getting some 'interesting' visions. :rofl:

[denverbill]

4. Maybe if Clinton hadn't invaded Iraq, we wouldn't have this problem.

I learned all about it on 'Path to 9-11'.

[2Design]

5. it is too hard to fly any more - and invasion of person

this is a pain even in the usa - these authoritarian TSA people are a pain in the tail - taking your shoes off, all of the crap is a smoke screen - I am always surprized that anyone comes now that we finger print them - and disney is moving toward finger printing them too to get in and ride a roller coaster

When * funds the terriorist and kisses their leader while bombing innocent people - he is not fighting terrorists but creating them

I hate standing in lines having people go through my bag - it was nice to go to legoland and not have that invasion - they don't waste time checking every bag - it seems if disney or other theme parks want to check bags they need more bag checkers - the lines to get in for your $70 dollar experience and having disney cast members yelling at you not to stand there or here or where ever there is a good view of the parade - it has become too much of a pain in general - I don't know why foreigners put up with it at all - if disney wants more people - lower their prices and stop intimidating people

also stop funding propoganda

[Selteri]

10. I try to avoid flying now, considering it could endanger my life.

I'm a hypoglycemic, I need to keep liquids on me, the same as some others who share this particular affliction.

I'm not even going to start into the absurdity of mixing the solutions they were talking about inside of the planes. One is easily controlled, another would take 8 hours to titrate out and still would require someone with enough training that I'd be better using him to fund terrorism by cooking off high cost drugs. The other mixtures only become more absurd and diffuclt to sneak onboard or try to do.

Give me my freaking shoes back, give me my water and start using some real work instead of relying on fear tactics and this constant march of fear. Most of the 'security' measures they keep subjecting us to seem to be of the same sort of anti-logic that we don't scan the actual cargo past suitcases going onto the airplanes.

I'm already subject to an increased level of searches because I went to *gasp* Amsterdam twice in the period of one year. After that my number being pulled for the 'more thorough' search proceedure sure has come up a lot more often. I'm sure that the glass work that I do when I'm in good health makes me such a tremendous danger to some airplane.

Just wait, next thing you know they'll modify the standing space plane idea and fit them with padded cages to ensure that no passenger can get ouf of their chair without assistance of an armed flight attnendant with a sniper backup! ;sarcasm;

[warrens]

8. Let's find a way to get this word out

I want these bastards to suffer. They piled money on Bush et al for years, now let them suffer. I am not after Disney per se. The travel industry gave big bucks to Smirky and his little fascist pals, so fuck them.

Actions have consequences, and enabling fascists makes normal people not like you one bit. And they vote with their euros or yen or whatever.

[reprobate]

11. YOU aren't after Disney. But there's an insurection brewing with their

employees.

One of my best friends worked for the Rat Cage (used to be mouse house) for years before diabetes put him on total disability, and he's still in daily contact with many of the employees there.

He tells me that the staff dislike treatiing the tourinsts like potential terrorists even less than the tourists do. It goes against everything they've trained for over the years, ie making them feel welcome. There is also a fire building about all the outsourcing the corporation is doing.

The people at disney, the employees, not stockholders are feeling the same economic pinch that most of the middle class is under a Republi-corpoate fascist regime.

Remember that the tourism industry is among the lowest paid of our great service economy. It's not the Board of Directors or the stockholders that feels the pinch, it's the line employees that suffer, just like every othe industry under fascism.

[lovuian]

14. Exit tax for Disney In Europe they give you all your taxes back

at the airport with your passport and receipts how in the hell is this going Tourism...
No wonder disney kissed Bush's butt with the ABC 9/11 documentary they are losing tons of money at their theme parks and hotels and cruises

BOYCOT is going on and they know it...

[dipsydoodle]

16. Do you mean the vat ?

Non EU visitors to any EU country can reclaim all of the value added tax they've paid on goods, against receipts. , on departure from the EU.

[damntexdem]

15. Oh, what progressive thinking! To promote tourism, ...

tax tourists even more. We tax ourselves for the common good. What common good would tourists enjoy from being taxed more?

If the issue is that "homeland security" policies are killing tourism, address the homeland security policies. The idiocy of those policies is among the factors that have driven many of us to cut domestic travel, as well.

[dipsydoodle]

17. Free gift for those unable to pay exit tax