AMERICA THE EXCEPTIONAL - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 251

Most American and many foreign families have a story like ours about a wondrous va-
cation at a national park. The U.S. National Park System is a gift to Americans, to the
world, and to tourism. National parks are at the top of the list of reasons why visitors love
the United States. We invented some of the greatest ideas for recreation, and they've been
copied worldwide. The U.S. National Park System inspired the parks in Africa and South
America.
Disneyland ushered in the era of modern theme parks now popular in Europe and Asia.
Las Vegas was one of the original made-for-entertainment cities. New York is in a class by
itself; Times Square is the center of entertainment, business, fashion, the media, publish-
ing, theater—every creative impulse in the modern world. The United States gave birth to
airplanes, led the way in air travel, modernized hotel chains, the “experience economy”
for travel—the list is endless.
Yet even with some of the most extraordinary landscapes and sophisticated cities in the
world, as well as one of the most vibrant cultures; with states like California that are the
equivalent of a country, from the northern redwood forests to San Francisco and the wine
regions, down to Los Angeles, Hollywood and Disneyland; foreigners no longer flock to
the United States. In the last decade, as travel and tourism became the world's favorite pas-
time, the number of international visitors to the United States has flattened; it hasn't gone
up or down.
The United States lost out on the tourism explosion. The numbers tell the story. In
the first decade of the twenty-first century, travel and tourism grew by 52.1 percent world-
wide. Few other businesses can match that. Yet, the United States dropped in popularity,
its number of visitors barely budged, increasing by only 1.5 percent. Things were slightly
better on the money side of the ledger. The foreign visitors increased spending from $82
billion to $103 billion in the same period. Over all, though, the United States' share of the
world market had dropped so steeply that France grabbed the top spot as the most popular
destination in the world.
The reasons for this decline center on America's ambivalence toward the government's
role in travel and tourism, which is tied to the general attitude toward governance.
American leaders have traditionally resisted centralized federal planning as is done in
Europe and Asia. Many American politicians believe that such planned economies stifle
individual endeavors. Instead, American lawmakers are freelancers, examining issues and
passing laws often in isolation, on their own merits, without fully considered regard for a
policy's impact in the larger scheme of government. (The one exception is defense policy,
which has a four-year planning and budget process.) While the governments of the other
top tourism nations accept their role in organizing, regulating and promoting tourism, the
United States does not. Other governments have websites in multiple languages to help
foreigners plan their visits; the United States did not until 2012.