AMERICA THE EXCEPTIONAL - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 258

now faced getting a visa to the United States and the treatment they received once they
arrived at an American airport. Tourists were questioned on arrival in minute detail about
why they wanted to visit. “Rude,” “disrespectful,” and “annoying” were some of the better
words used to describe their treatment, according to the survey. Foreigners not only did not
feel welcome; they felt they had to prove they were innocent of unmentioned tendencies,
to border guards who acted as if every foreigner could be the next terrorist. In short order
the United States was taken off millions of tourist lists.
The evidence of that finding was plentiful in foreign newspapers and websites con-
firming the worst. Travel to the United States meant a “spirit-crushingly frosty reception,”
according to an article in the London Sunday Times entitled “Travel to America? No
Thanks.”
“A preflight interrogation, epic queues at immigration, thin-lipped questioning from ag-
gressive border guards and an outside chance of a rubber-gloved rectal rummage are all
part of the fun,” the article continued.
The Guardian of London printed an article in its Travel section in February 2008 with
the headline “America—More Hassle Than It's Worth?” The writer, Ed Vulliamy, de-
scribed new requirements for entering the United States and asked: “ . . . for us travellers,
it means that the already onerous task of getting to America will be complicated to a point
that makes Italy seem an even more attractive option. Who the hell wants to apply online
for permission to visit the US before even buying a ticket?”
The article was so popular it elicited 9,155 responses in four days that covered 36 prin-
ted pages before the comments were closed down. The last entry was representative: “I
think there's a poetic justice lurking behind the new flight security measures demanded by
the U.S. administration, and all the other American efforts to protect themselves from the
inevitable. What they achieve mainly is to further isolate the Americans from the human
beings on this planet. Everybody wins.”
The British had already voted with their feet against travel to the United States. Instead
of hitting the high spots of America, the British had increased their visits to India by 102
percent, to Turkey by 82 percent and to New Zealand by 106 percent. The rantings on the
Internet were the tip of the iceberg.
Travel blogs were replete with stories from travelers of other nationalities unwilling to
put up with the indignities and humiliation that they say is part of travel to the United
States. German tourists even compared the U.S.-built wall along the Mexican border to
the Berlin Wall, with the Americans cast in the role of the East Germans.
Tourists also expressed the fear that one small slip-up could land them in jail. The story
of Rick Giles, a tourist from Canterbury, New Zealand, ricocheted around the Internet.
Mr. Giles had spent six weeks in jail in Detroit for mistakenly overstaying his visa by six
days in July 2007. When he was finally released, he was deported home, where he told the
local newspaper that at first he thought the confusion was “amusing.