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http://www.travmedia.com/north-america/pressrelease.php?id=54884&am...
My beef is this $10 fee. There used to be a time when business overheads were included in the price of services and goods. Now, everything is an add on. Frankly, I pissed at paying all these extras. If a destination or a property or a state or a country wants to attract my business - or that of my readers - then they should have that contribution factored into their marketing budget, which is one of the overheads they consider when setting their prices.
Whenever I can, I now add up these charges and bring it to the reader's attention and/or I find a cheaper alternative. Or at least a destination to pitch that doesn't charge.
I've just been invited on a trip to Europe. Unfortunately, it means flying to NYC to catch a plane. Given the indignity of what I have to go through at the airport to fly into the US, I am reconsidering the invitation. I'm hoping they can fly me directly from Canada to Europe and take a connecting flight.
Of all the countries I've travelled to, America is the only one I actually think I may not be admitted to enter. I have actually found Chinese customs agents more friendly and welcoming than ones at Logan Airport (which is normally where I enter the US).
Bill to Create U.S. Tourism Board
By Lionel Beehner
The number of foreign visitors to the United States in 2009 was 9 percent below 2000. A new bill that passed the Senate last week, and is expected to be signed into law, aims to reverse that trend.
The Travel Promotion Act would create a national tourism board to develop ad campaigns and raise awareness of United States security and visa procedures. The tourism board would be financed by a $10 fee on foreign visitors who do not need a visa to enter the United States.
The travel industry has long advocated for a tourism board, arguing that the United States is one of the few industrialized nations without one. A January 2010 study by Oxford Economics, a forecasting and research group in Britain, estimated that a tourism bureau would bring in 1.6 million additional foreign visitors yearly, as well as pump about $4 billion into the U.S. economy.
Critics of the bill, including some Republicans and some airline industry representatives, say that the slump in foreign tourism is not a public relations issue, but rather a result of strict immigration rules that subject visitors to unwelcoming, and even humiliating procedures.
"Examiner.com is a good place to put your old stuff, express yourself without anyone getting in the way (thanks to self-publishing) and, eventually, make some money.
"The pay varies, but it is just under a penny a click. I had to work up to my current amount of about $100 or so a week, and I'm usually in the top ten on travel. So the rewards aren't enormous but I enjoy the work and the channel manager, Grant, which is really saying something as he handles about 1000 writers.
"That said, if you want to apply, you can always back out or just write when you want to write (although the more you write, the more you make). And you own your work so there's no contract or anything. Oh, and you can pull an article out when you want or keep it on as you see fit."