Las Vegas Sun

November 15, 2009

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Editorial: Tourism industry could use advocate

Friday, Sept. 28, 2001 | 9:15 a.m.

The U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration was abolished in 1996, leaving the United States as the only industrialized nation that doesn't spend federal funds to promote tourism. Now that tourism has fallen on hard times after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it is apparent how shortsighted it was to eliminate the travel and tourism agency.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., says she will introduce legislation next week to re-establish the agency. The tourism industry is facing a crisis as people fear venturing far from home, even for business trips. Boxer says it is her belief that a tourism agency would not only lure international travelers, but it also would boost domestic tourism.

A new federal tourism agency would have to be created from scratch, so it may not help too much immediately even if it were to become a reality within months. But in the future such an agency could aid tourism-based economies, including ours in Las Vegas, to prosper during healthy economic times and also weather those periods when the economy is hurting.

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