ABSTRACT
While the reason for tourism agreements is the promotion of trade through tourism, these agreements also serve additional national policy objectives, such as encouraging international understanding, friendly relations and goodwill. In the past 30 years, the United States has negotiated tourism agreements with many countries. Using those made by the United States with other nations as an example, tourism agreements generally focus on the following specific criteria:
• increasing two-way tourism, • supporting efforts by the National Tourism Organization travel
promotion office(s), • improving tourism facilitation, • encouraging reciprocal investments in the two nations’ tourism
industries, • promoting the sharing of research, statistics and information, • recognizing the importance of the safety and security of tourists, • suggesting mutual cooperation on policy issues in international
tourism, • providing for regular consultations on tourism matters, • acknowledging benefits from education and training in tourism, • enhancing mutual understanding and goodwill. Two prominent examples of international tourism agreements involving the United States and its trading partners are those with the United Mexican States and with the Republic of Venezuela. Both agreements accredit tourism officials as members of a diplomatic or consular post and facilitate the exchange of tourism statistics and information between the two nations involved in the agreement. Interestingly, these and other agreements state that the United States will participate in the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), although, as stated in the following section, the United States is not a member of that august organization. The tourism agreement entered into by the United States and Mexico in
October 1989, which superseded an April 1983 agreement, assists in facilitating motor carrier and other ground transport across the international border and calls for the nations to share information about automobile
liability with one another. Understanding policies involving ground transportation is critical for visitors, as many cross the border in private vehicles. The agreement includes provisions for developing bi-national cultural events to strengthen ties and promote tourism, waiving applicable visa fees for teachers and experts in the field of tourism, promoting travel to regions and developing and improving tourist facilities and attractions in regions which contain examples of native culture in each country, and conducting joint marketing activities in third countries. The US-Mexican agreement explicitly states that the nations ‘will
endeavour to facilitate travel of tourists into both countries by simplifying and eliminating, as appropriate, procedural and documentary requirements’. This will conflict with the border crossing policy outlined in the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), which will require all citizens to provide a secured passport when entering the United States or Mexico. This is, of course, in response to acts of terrorism in the United States. This situation is a good example of the need for fluidity in tourism strategy and policy, so that it is not only reactive but also proactive as market conditions and foreign policy change. An interesting aspect of the tourism agreement entered into by
Venezuela and the United States on 7 September 1989 is that it calls for complementary agencies in the two countries to enter into their own agreements with each other. For example, the US National Park Service and Venezuela’s Instituto Nacional de Parques are encouraged to pursue cooperative policies related to tourism development and facilitation. The agreement is specific about exchanges and mutual assistance, including efforts to identify tourism experts for short-term exchange assignments and identifying volunteer private-sector executives and professors of tourism who are eligible for sabbatical leave. This arrangement promotes cross-cultural understanding and has increased the body of knowledge in the field of international tourism development.
