By: Daniel Nardini

The United States of America. No one needs an explanation about this country. It is known in just about every place on Earth. Just as well known are the famous destinations within the United States such as the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and the list can go on and on and on. I am not even including Chicago which has truly wonderful attractions such as the Field Museum, the Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute, the John Hancock Building, the Sears Tower, etc. Tens of millions of people come to visit this great country, and tens of millions of more people want to visit this country. The major problem is our visa system. First of all, the visa system is antiquated. The process takes too long, and for the length of time it takes to get a tourist visa to come to this country a person from another country could go somewhere else. Many countries, such as Brazil and China, are actually streamlining their whole visa system so that people can go to these two countries more easily, and the whole visa process will only take a matter of weeks or even days. Sadly, for countries not on America’s visa-free list, the process for obtaining a U.S. visa could take up to a year or longer. This is a considerable length of time that can and usually does mean we lose tourists who will simply pick elsewhere.

Second, there are too many security restrictions in the whole process. If many Americans are getting turned off by all of the security procedures at our airports, then imagine how bad it is for those trying to get into the United States for vacation! There are even more ridiculous restrictions being placed on non-U.S. tourists who just want to see what this country is all about. According to the U.S. Travel Association, this country could create one million new jobs for the tourism industry for this decade if we can change the visa rule system. Tourists coming to the U.S. spent $100 billion in the first ten months of 2011, and imagine what that number would be if we start reforming the visa rule system. Some congressional officials have proposed adding Brazil to the list of those countries whose citizens can come to the United States visa-free (sadly, the United States actually started requiring Brazilians to get visas to come to this country. The Brazilian government responded by requiring Americans to get visas before visiting Brazil. It all has to do with the fear of “terrorism” and this was a very stupid move on the part of the U.S. government). Also, some have suggested that tourists from China be given visas that allow them to stay longer in the United States. These are some of the ideas that have been put forward to try and attract tourism to this country. However, there seems to be almost as much resistance on changing the visa rule system because some U.S. officials fear the “next big terrorist attack.”

While security concerns should never be taken lightly, it should not be the stumbling block that it has become in preventing this country from promoting and expanding its tourism industry. According to the U.S. Travel Association, the tourist industry has sufficiently recovered that tourism to the U.S. is now where it was before the Great Recession started in 2008. However, overall tourism is still less that it was ten years ago when more strict visa rules were put into place in the wake of September 11th. These restrictions are leaving the United States woefully behind in trying to attract tourism, and help trying to help the tourist industry back on its feet which nearly fell apart in 2001 and again in 2008. But the greater problem than having a thoroughly antiquated visa system and security restrictions is our paranoia of the rest of the world. This paranoia is costing us in lost tourism revenue, ill-will from other countries, and a very serious misunderstanding of what America is all about. We must start to change our current visa system.