To: NBTA Members, Partners, and Colleagues
From: NBTA President & CEO, Kevin Maguire, CCTE
Date: January 16, 2008
I’m pleased to tell you about an important new report on the state of international travel to the United States. “Preserving Our Welcome to the World in an Age of Terrorism” was submitted today to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Homeland Security Advisory Committee by the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee (SBODAC) – a group appointed by Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and Secretary of State Rice to gather expert input on travel and border issues.
NBTA was privileged to be involved in the creation of the report: Bill Connors, NBTA Executive Director, spoke with members of SBODAC as a subject matter expert on the importance of effectively facilitating international business travel to the United States, with a particular focus on International Registered Traveler.
As a long-time corporate travel manager and President & CEO of NBTA, I know that effective programs for screening international travelers to the United States are key to national security. Just as important to national security is creating those systems so that visitors from around the world feel welcome. They are our potential allies, business partners, and friends. We want them to leave with a desire to return, and we want them to go back to their homes with positive experiences of the best the United States has to offer.
The SBODAC report will bring attention at the highest levels of government to both the progress that has been made in recent years and areas that need improvement. Many of SBODAC’s recommendations align with NBTA’s government relations priorities. To highlight a few:
- Establish an International Registered Traveler pilot program and promptly expand the program to the top 20 international airports.
- Accelerate and expand the Model Ports of Entry Program.
- Set a 30-day maximum wait time for visa interviews.
- Boost resources for visa processing, and plan more effectively to meet growing visa needs by adding new consular offices and posts.
- Continue to expand access to consular services through videoconferencing.
- Reduce primary inspection time for arriving airline passengers to less than 30 minutes by December of 2009.
- Seek a mechanism to fund visa operations innovation and to respond to surges in demand for consular services.
- Implement the US-VISIT Exit without degrading the travel experience.
- Implement Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) and US-VISIT for land border crossings without degrading the travel experience.
- Increase visa training for CBP officers at the U.S.-Canada border.
- Establish an optional pre-travel approval process for qualified Canadian business visa applicants.
- Increase the effectiveness of NEXUS, SENTRI, and FAST trusted traveler programs.
- Work with the Canadian and Mexican governments and industry to reduce land-boarder wait times.
The report also promotes the idea of involving corporate America in diplomatic efforts, a concept NBTA has advanced through a partnership with Business for Diplomatic Action. You can find the entire report here.
NBTA will continue to work closely with the global business travel community and governmental authorities to keep improving the experience for travelers to the United States while maintaining a strong national security posture. In the coming days we’ll provide you with our Report Card, which rates how the government performed on these and other important issues for the business travel community during 2007 and makes recommendations for 2008.
Best regards,
Kevin Maguire
NBTA President & CEO