BANGKOK -- The travel industry should not underestimate
popular concerns about immigration, terror and open borders, former U.K. Prime
Minister David Cameron said at the World Travel & Tourism Council's annual
Global Summit here.
In a keynote address, Cameron said that the industry must
recognize "the concerns that ordinary voters have, and politicians have on their behalf, about the danger of extremists and terrorists being able to
travel."
"You have accept in your industry that you are going to
see greater emphasis on using technology ensuring that we inspect people's
credentials at borders and making sure we expel illegal overstayers," he
said. "I hope that instead of the tourist industry and governments having
a fight and argument about it, we recognize the need for security and think
about the technological solutions, including biometrics data, that can help
solve the problem.
Cameron's address recognized the issues facing an industry
in which policies to tighten borders inadvertently impact people's ability to
travel.
"Clearly people are broadly concerned about
immigration," said Arne Sorenson, CEO of Marriott International. "That
creates another challenge for us -- to make sure travel doesn't get rolled into
an anti-immigration debate. We're not in the business of immigration – we're in
the business of vacation and business travel."
David Scowsill, the outgoing CEO of the World Travel &
Tourism Council, said that despite all of these concerns, "In an age of
heightened security, we still believe in the fundamental right of people to
cross borders easily."
However, he said there are ways to do that while maintaining
security.
"Visa reform is the biggest single step any government
can take to increase the number of international visitors. Let's lose the paper
visas, the consular visits, the long queues, the bureaucracy," he said.