During the inaugural festivities for President Obama last month, a reporter friend of mine ran into a man who had traveled to Washington from London just to watch the ceremony from the streets.
"Only in America could something like this happen right now," Sam Johnson, 29, told my friend, who writes about politics for the Denver Post.
He said he knew of others who flew in from Kenya, Bangkok and Johannesburg, South Africa.
"It makes the rest of us feel like America is again the land of dreams," Johnson said.
Indeed, one of the immediate changes Obama's election brought was hope here and abroad that the U.S. could regain its stature as a respected world leader and a place where people dreamed of being welcomed to visit.
Because of that renewed sense of respect for our country, it seems like the perfect time for the industry to win passage of the long-sought Travel Promotion Act.
Although Obama was a sponsor of the original Travel Promotion Act, Joe McInerney, president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said he was not optimistic of seeing it pass anytime soon, mostly because of the huge challenges Obama and Congress are facing right off the bat, from the economy to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"But we have to keep it in front of them, and eventually they will think it was their idea," McInerney said. "I hope I am young enough to see it my lifetime."
The proposal calls for creation of a nonprofit corporation to promote travel and tourism to the U.S. and to provide foreign visitors with information about entry requirements, documentation and fees required to enter the country. It would be funded by the travel industry and an entry fee levied on foreign visitors.
One opportunity McInerney said he saw for the act in the coming year was to include it as part of an economic stimulus package.
"If they are smart and see that tourism coming to us is an export and helps balance trade ... that could be positive," he said. "Even though I am not the optimist on this one, we could wake up one morning and that could happen."
Travel industry lobbyists need to remind lawmakers about the many jobs at stake.
The historical Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, which has been struggling with both labor issues and the hit on luxury hotels, recently laid off 650 workers. And hotel companies across the country, from Wyndham to Marriott and Interstate, have all been reducing their workforces.
And as Simon Cooper, president of Ritz-Carlton, pointed out recently in a discussion about a drop in meetings at luxury resorts, when hotel workers lose their jobs, it can affect whole communities.
"Some of these are the largest employers in their communities," he said. "And these are geographically dispersed communities."
For example, he said, the Ritz-Carlton, Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Ga., is the largest employer in Greene County.
"The penitentiary is the only other thing," he said.
While much of the impact on hotels and resorts in North America is the result of a drop in domestic meetings, business and leisure travel, there is no better time than now to try to make up for some of those losses by tapping into a renewed desire by foreign travelers to visit the U.S.
So if our politicians are willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out some of the very institutions that created this mess, shouldn't they let the travel industry try to help itself, with no cost to taxpayers?
After all, the U.S. is one of the few developed nations that doesn't promote tourism to attract visitors.
And it need look no further than Obama's family for an example of a new tolerance for diversity.
Among the relatives gathered for his inauguration were Obama's step-grandmother from Kenya, his Indonesian-American half-sister, her Chinese-Canadian husband and his African-American brother-in-law and his Caucasian wife.
Email Jeri Clausing at [email protected].