US wants to see Indian tourists tip a million during Obama era

WASHINGTON: As President Obama and his wife wing their way to New Delhi this weekend with a touristy excursion to Agra appended at the tail end of the trip, they will be visiting a country that will most likely send a million Indian tourists to the United States in 2015. And Uncle Sam wants more.

Apparently, the days of Indian travelers jumping through hoops and pining in vain for a US tourist visa are over. These days, if you have the moolah and the assets to show you won't disappear into the vast open spaces in America, a visa is yours for the asking, particularly if you can set the US cash registers ringing.

So what has changed? "We were the last developed country in the world not to have a dedicated effort to promote travel and tourism and President Obama decided to change that when he realized that the United States suffered a lost decade after 9/11," explained Chris Thompson, President and CEO at Brand USA, which was created by the federal government to gee up travel to the land of Disneyland and Hollywood that has never had to work hard for the tourist dollar. Not any more.

Apparently, US laxity or rigidness after 9/11 saw other nations take full advantage of world tourism, growing it by 67 per cent, even as US lost ground and then remained flat. The Obama administration in 2010 passed the travel promotion act to address this, and since then, things are looking up.

The US, which lost the most visited country in the world title to France in 2013, racked up 70 million foreign visitors and $ 181 billion in revenue in 2013, and it is expected to improve its position in 2014. The President wants to ramp it up to 100 million visitors and $ 250 billion by 2020 to recapture the number 1 position, and India, China and Brazil are seen as key drivers of this growth.

Thompson says the US has now "stepped up its game" in these focus markets with Visit USA committees and marketing teams, and the results are starting to show. Wait times for visas are down from months to weeks in US missions in India, and a lot of the process is transitioning online, with consulates issuing longer term visas.

"India and Brazil in particular received extra attention after the administration in 2012 identified the two countries had the greatest potential and the greatest problems," said Thompson, raving about the efficiencies that have since been introduced. The flow of travelers from India to the US. came in at 962,000 visitors in 2014, and it is expected to tip a million in 2015. By 2021, it is realistic to expect over 1.5 million tourists, Thompson added.

That's still a trickle compared to the hordes from other countries who stream into the biggest magnet in the free and entertaining world. Neighbors Canada and Mexico top the list with 23 million and 14 million US bound tourists respectively, with UK(4 million), Japan (4 million), Brazil, Germany and China (about 2 million each) following. France, South Korea, and Australia also send more tourists (upwards of a million) to the US than 10th placed India.

But now that one of the most famous visa spats in history is giving way to a matchless engagement in geopolitics, Uncle Sam wants to see many more Indians visit America.