AMERICA THE EXCEPTIONAL - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 254

ate to be done away with. It was one of numerous direct challenges to the policies of the
Democrats in Congress and especially those of the Democratic President Bill Clinton.
The president and his vice president, Al Gore, had been keen on creating what they
called “smart” government, using new technologies, especially the computer and the
evolving Internet that they said promised vastly improved performance at cost savings.
(Gore was the champion of this geek approach.) Tourism was on their list of industries
to be enhanced by “smart” technology, and in October 1995 the president held the first
White House Conference on Travel and Tourism. He invited 1,700 American leaders of
the industry that was responsible for adding $417 billion to the national economy in 1994.
The White House conference was built around a new public-private strategy for tour-
ism timed to take advantage of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The ad-
ministration wanted to follow the example of Spain, which had profited from heavy pro-
motion of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, lifting tourism to that country. But
the United States was the only country of any significance without a nationally coordin-
ated tourist program or a top-echelon tourism agency. The White House conference was
geared to kick-start the industry through government help.
President Clinton opened the event with a thirty-minute address, first telling his audi-
ence that it was “about time” that their industry was honored with a White House event.
The crowd cheered and gave the president a standing ovation. Then Clinton spoke of the
particular moment in history as a “very important time.”
“This industry holds much promise for the future of America. It has a lot to teach us
as Americans as we stand at the dawn of a new era, moving from an industrial age to one
that will be dominated by technology and information and our ability to relate to one an-
other,” he said. “We've moved at a breathtaking pace from the divided world of the cold
war to a global village. And we know that trade and tourism and travel, all these things are
tailor-made for what we do well and what the 21st Century will value.”
He recited the impressive economic achievements of U.S. travel and tourism: the
second-largest employer in the U.S.; adding $22 billion to the country's trade surplus in
1994; and $78 billion spent by foreign visitors that same year. He took credit for his admin-
istration's first projects to help tourism: a special commission that helped to revitalize the
airline companies and an overhaul of the Federal Aviation Administration to modernize
and update its equipment and technology.
“As the circle of freedom expands around the globe, the tourism industry will keep
growing all around the world,” he predicted.
Then he warned that tourism would not be without its problems: questions would be
raised about safety from terrorism; how to keep the air and water clean so that the en-
vironment would be welcoming to tourists; how to target specific foreign tourists like the
(wealthy) Japanese to visit the United States; and how to smooth the way at the border for
legal visitors to feel welcome and not be hampered by unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles.