After 34 years with Marriott in positions ranging from summer lifeguard to senior vice president, global and field sales, ROGER DOW became president and chief executive officer of the Travel Industry Association in 2005. Under his leadership, TIA has established a partnership with the Travel Business Roundtable through which it is making itself more visible in governmental affairs. Recently, Dow took some time to talk about TIA and the issues facing the travel industry.

Corporate Meetings & Incentives: Governmental affairs have become a major focus of TIA recently. How did that come about?

Dow: Over the past three years, we've been able to increase our visibility in governmental affairs. You used to have the Travel Business Roundtable and us — both with government affairs offices with limited resources — writing letters here and there, and reporting on some travel-related news. Together we've formed a very specific kind of partnership, which really came in response to our chairman, Jay Rasulo, who saw that we were losing a tremendous amount of incoming international travel business.

We created the Discover America Partnership with the Travel Business Roundtable, reached out to the big travel and hospitality corporations — like the Marriotts, Hiltons, and Hertzes — of the world, and got the resources to come up with a coordinated approach to help us really build the case for our industry. We've made some tremendous progress.

CMI: What do you think is the most important accomplishment of the last year?

Dow: Getting the president to expand the Visa Waiver Program. If you remember, the dialogue a year ago was actually about shutting down the visa waiver program. We were able to position the issue as a way to enhance security while adding more countries like South Korea to the program. And that should translate into another 2 million visitors into the country.

CMI: How does the meetings and convention industry play into the travel and tourism efforts and policies that TIA advocates?

Dow: I was talking to the head of one of the biggest oil companies in the world, and he was saying he can't hold global meetings in the U.S. on three or four weeks' notice because he has folks in Brazil or India who can't get a visa. So instead they're taking meetings to Toronto, or Shanghai, or Dubai.

Just look at the numbers. International arrivals to the U.S. from 2000 to 2006 are on par. But when you start peeling the onion, you see a different story. Travelers coming into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico in 2006 increased by 17 percent. That means the numbers coming from the rest of the world are decreasing. And when it is so much cheaper to travel to the U.S. than it was four years ago [because of the declining dollar] and they're still not lining up to get in, that says we are in real trouble.

CMI: With problems like that in mind, what are the most important issues that TIA will be looking at over the next year?

Dow: First, we need to create a 21st-century visa program. We really need to increase the number and capability of visa officers so that we can process visas within 30 days.

Second, we have to improve the travel facilitation process. The perception around the world is that it is a major hassle getting through immigration in this country, and unless we counteract that, we'll continue to get bad press. Part of the omnibus spending bill [passed by Congress in December] provides funds to make the top 20 U.S. inbound international airports “model ports” for providing a more efficient and welcoming process for inbound travelers and to hire more U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers to help reduce processing times.

And third, there's a bill in the House and Senate — the “Travel Promotion Act of 2007” — that's critical. When it comes to promoting the United States internationally as a destination, we're having our heads handed to us. The U.K., Canada, Mexico — all spend millions, while we spend virtually zero. You can be a Disney or a Marriott promoting the dickens out of your product, but if a person hasn't decided first that he wants to come to America, it's just wasting dollars.