White House announces steps aimed at boosting tourism

By | January 19, 2012

President Obama unveiled a new visa elemination plan during a mid-January visit to Walt Disney World (near Orlando, Fla.) in an effort to boost U.S. tourism, thus hopefully creating more jobs.

The President’s visit to one of the nation’s largest tourist attractions was aimed to promote U.S. toursim from Brazil and China to name just a few. In the first step of his plan, Obama specifically ordered the departments of State and Homeland Security to boost the capacity for issuing visas in China and Brazil by 40 percent in 2012. 1.2 million Brazilians visited the U.S. in 2010, a  one-third increase from the year before. More than 801,000 Chinese visited the same year, a 53 percent increase from a year ago.

Newly opened Legoland Florida, located in Winter Haven, is in favor the new visa rules.

“This development is a major game-changer for Florida.  An improved visa process helps us roll out the welcome mat to our friends in Brazil and will result in record numbers of young families visiting Florida. Cost and convenience historically are two of the biggest barriers in travel.  By addressing the hassle factor and making the visa process less onerous, we’ve just substantially improved our chance of attracting additional guests,”  said Adrian Jones, Legoland’s general manager. “As a brand new theme park that caters to young families this is of course very welcome news for Legoland Florida.  The fact that we’re already seeing large numbers from Latin America combined with the president’s announcement is pushing us to seek out more Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking model citizens to better accommodate our guests from across this region.”