Roy Blunt: “I come to the floor today to highlight the importance of travel and tourism in our economy and also to make the point…”

“I come to the floor today to highlight the importance of travel and tourism in our economy and also to make the point that we are welcoming of people from other countries--and we are welcoming of people in our country, as well--who want to be part, for a short time or a long time, of America. The travel and tourism business is an incredibly important part of the tourism economy. Last month, I, along with my fellow cochairs of the Senate Travel and Tourism Caucus--Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Dean Heller, and Senator Brian Schatz--led the Senate in the passage of a resolution recognizing the week of May 7 as National Travel and Tourism Week. There are really good statistics--whether it is Missouri or West Virginia or the country at-large--on this topic. One out of every nine jobs in the United States depends on travel and tourism. It accounts for over 15 million jobs nationwide. International travel to the United States is our single largest export industry. The single largest thing where people bring money into our country is tourism to the United States. It generates a trade surplus of roughly $87 billion. As to that trade surplus with foreign travelers, foreign travelers stay longer, they spend more, and they like us better when they leave--virtually 100 percent of the time--than they did when they got here. Even if they thought they were going to like us a lot, they wind up liking us more.…”