U.S. Travel Association President & CEO Geoff Freeman addressed the major frustrations of wait times for visas and customs for international travellers entering the country at the IPW24 conference in Los Angeles, saying that fixing airport connections and visa processing problems are “within our control”.
The peak industry body established the new Seamless & Secure Travel taskforce, charged with removing these barriers to international travel to ensure the US remains competitive in the news travel landscape.
“We have challenges with international travel to the United States and we need to acknowledge that we need to figure out what we’re going to do about it,” Freeman said.
“The US remains the world’s most desired nation to visit – at the end of 2019, we had 79 million visitors internationally. At the end of 2023, we had 67 million international visitors – only 84% of pre-pandemic levels.
“So we have serious problems on the international inbound travel side that we have to resolve. Some of those problems are within our control. And some of those problems are outside our control.
“There’s not a whole lot we can do about the strength of our dollar. There’s not a whole lot we can do about the limitations of flight over Russian airspace right now, which is a major inhibitor for bringing Asian travellers to the United States.
“But there’s a lot we can do on issues that we control, like visa waiver, customs and efficiencies – the challenges travellers have when trying to make a connection and having to rescreen their bags when coming into the United States.”
Visa waiting times & airport processing issues
Freeman noted that wait times for visas at international consulates can be more than 600 days, while others have been reduced from 500 to 21 days.
“[The U.S. Travel Association] has challenged the administration to set a goal of 30 days or less to process all visas at any consulate around the world,” he said.
On the customs side, he said travellers are waiting more than two hours to enter the US after flying into gateways, such as LA, while bag collection and rescreening is a major inconvenience for onward travel to other ports.
“There’s nothing more predictable than when planes are going to land,” he said. We can stamp appropriately. We can use technology. We can demonstrate a commitment to addressing these issues.”
Seamless & Secure Travel Commission
Seamless & Secure Travel Commission Co-Chair and former Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan said it’s a complex issue that involves multiple stakeholders across government, airports, air carriers and State Departments to work together efficiently to solve.
Solutions include using biometric technology such as facial recognition to improve facilitation and security and uniform end-to-end wayfinding that alerts passengers of wait times and navigation in real-time.
Freeman and McAleenan noted a bill is currently being introduced into the Senate to ban the use of biometrics in airports, which sees the US lag behind competitors in the UK and Europe and those pursuing the legislation “getting it wrong”.
Seamless & Secure Travel Commission member and ex-TSA Deputy Administrator Patty Cogswell said: “The traveller has demonstrated repeatedly in surveys globally, that they’re willing to give up an image to streamline their process through aviation security and across the border.”
U.S. Travel Association’s Freeman added: “So that’s why we have this commission to address those issues. That will take us to the top of that list of competitiveness.”
“I think as we make those reforms, you’re going to see travel to the United States skyrocket in the years ahead We’re going to get these issues resolved.”
For more info, head to ustravel.org
