Hey, America

November 24th, 2006 · No Comments

Can you wake up a bit faster please? Time for Bush and neo-Conservatism to go, OK.

international travelers see the United States as the world’s worst country in terms of getting a visa and, once you have it, making your way past rude immigration officials.

The survey, of 2,011 international travelers in 16 countries, was conducted by RT Strategies, a Virginia-based polling firm, for the Discover America Partnership, a group launched in September with multimillion-dollar backing from a range of companies that include the InterContinental Hotels Group, Anheuser Busch and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

The survey showed that the United States was ranked “the worst” in terms of visas and immigration procedures by twice the percentage of travelers as the next destination regarded as unfriendly — the Middle East and the Asian subcontinent.

More than half of the travelers surveyed said U.S. immigration officials were rude and two-thirds said they feared they would be detained on arriving in the United States for a simple mistake in their paperwork or for saying the wrong thing to an immigration official.

The survey was taken between October 25 and November 9
…
“Between 2000 and 2006, the number of overseas visitors, … has declined by 17 percent,” said Geoff Freeman, executive director of the Discover America Partnership, “and business travel in that period has dropped 10 percent.”