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The impact of American movies and TV is evident. The Japanese, who love cowboys, are intrigued by anything Western. Says an employee of Knott's Berry Farm near Los Angeles: "They buy cowboy hats, Indian dolls and jewelry and pioneer bonnets for the women." The Japanese are also fascinated by the glitter and tinsel of Las Vegas. The Germans are mesmerized by the wide open spaces in the American West and the grandeur of the redwood forests; they often rent campers to tour the national parks.
Foreigners are enchanted by amusement parks, where they can say hello to Mickey Mouse and see the embodiments of American fantasies. At California's Disneyland, nearly 9% of all visitors are foreign, and the percentage is only slightly smaller at Disney World in Florida. Arabs are thrilled most of all by the roller coasters. A Kuwaiti businessman was disappointed when told he could not rent California's Magic Mountain amusement park for a day exclusively for his party of twelve.
The U.S. is now attracting mostly first-time visitors from overseas, but if the nation wants to lure them back for second or third trips, it must improve and expand services. Only a few major cities have well-staffed visitor services that can help non-English-speaking tourists find their way about or locate a doctor on short notice. In hotels, restaurants and stores, it often seems that any language is spoken —just so it is English. Any money will be changed—so long as it is the U.S. dollar.
New Orleans International Airport does not even have a bank in it.
At the request of the U.S. Senate, the consulting firm Arthur D. Little, Inc. produced an ambitious plan for improving the U.S.'s performance. It proposes consolidating into one department the work of 31 federal agencies involved in tourism. A streamlining of the federal machinery might help, if it did not create more layers of bureaucracy. While the Little report dealt mainly with domestic tourism, the U.S. also needs a robust national tourist office—almost every European country has one—that could encourage travel by more aggressive advertising and information programs. At present, the U.S. Travel Service has only six branches abroad—three in Europe and one each in Canada, Mexico and Japan—and a foreign budget of $8.7 million.
Still, the main promotion and improvement of the U.S. as a tourist attraction should be left to private enterprise. As business people develop a yen for yen, marks, francs and all those other currencies, they will begin to concentrate their efforts on making the U.S. a more enticing playground and shopping center for those worldly tourists.