The US Travel Association, which sees increased foreign visitors as a key to America's economic recovery, intends to reverse this trend.

USTA, a Washington-based trade group for American travel and tourism industry, has delivered a set of recommendations to President Barack Obama that will - if implemented - make it far easier for millions of legitimate international travelers, including those in the Gulf, to visit the United States.

The comprehensive report, "Ready for Takeoff," released during the USTA's International Pow Wow, offers plain-spoken guidance to the US government on how to streamline visa and visitor entry processes while sustaining America's national security goals.

The USTA's International Pow Wow is the perfect venue, as it is the travel industry's premier international marketplace and the largest generator of Visit USA travel — it is NOT a typical trade show.

In just three days of intensive pre-scheduled business appointments at their annual conference held at the end of May in San Francisco, more than 1,000 US travel organizations from every region of the USA (representing all industry category components), and close to 1,500 international and domestic buyers from more than 70 countries, conducted business negotiations that resulted in the generation of over $3.5 billion in future Visit USA travel.

"We believe that our recommendations will create 1.3 million US jobs, and do this quickly. This is because travel and tourism is an industry that's heavily reliant on people," said Patricia Rojas, US Travel's vice president for government relations. "Winning back our share of the global travel market would bring 98 million more visitors to the United States each year and, over the next decade, generate $859 billion in cumulative additional economic output."

David Donahue, the US State Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services, told reporters at Pow Wow that he welcomed many of the suggestions made in the report.

"We understand the importance of making the visa process as respectful, organized and as efficient as possible. And we understand that we need to put resources where demand for visas is greatest," he said. "We are dedicated to improving visa service, and ensuring that people who are qualified to come to the United States can get a visa as easily as possible."

Authored by a panel of experts from the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, and the National Retail Federation, "Ready for Takeoff" offers the White House ways to boost international travel to the United States:

• US State Department should improve customer service at American missions that process visa requests. This may require new training for US Foreign Service personnel responsible for processing visas.

• Reduce visa interview wait times imposed by the State Department to 10 days or fewer. This may require the hiring of additional government personnel to conduct these interviews - especially in US missions where demand for American visas has zoomed: Brazil, China, and India.

• The State Department "should end artificial limits" on interview dates. "These limits," says the report," mislead visa applicants about wait times."

• Expand the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) in two ways:

• Offer VWP to several developing countries that have expressed an interest in the program, but are not yet eligible for inclusion.

• Penalize VWP visitors who overstay their visa with a monetary, instead of imposing anticipatory visa denials.

"I think the idea of enhancing training for US consular personnel responsible for issuing visas is a good idea," says Bosco Rodrigues, GSA Manager at National Flight Services in Jeddah. "Most of all, training people to have better communication skills is the most needed. American visa officials also need to be trained to have more sensitivity to the culture of the people they interact with professionally."

"Ready for Takeoff" — which can be downloaded from the US Travel Association website: www.ustravel.com -  cites the "lack of efficiency" in US visa and visitor entry rules as one of the barriers to America's economic recovery.

"Every dollar spent by an overseas visitor counts as an export," says the USTA report. "This makes travel an easy export industry to expand, and makes it key to closing the (American) trade deficit."

According to this "inbound-travel-is-an-export" calculus, USTA estimates that international visitors to the United States generate more than $34 billion in annual exports. The trade group has also determined that international travel and tourism to America's shores support 1.8 million American jobs.