TravelMole Interview: Richard Copland, American Society of Travel Agents

Terrorism alerts and tightened rules for entering the US have led Richard Copland, ceo and president of the American Society of Travel Agents, to lower his own forecast for tourism this year to be “decent” instead of “good.” “I would say travel will be off anywhere from 10 to 20%,” because of the new rules, he told TravelMole. Copland, who has met repeatedly with Homeland Security officials who he said were “very receptive” to travel business concerns, complains that the colored travel threat levels are confusing. “I travel once a week. When the light goes from yellow to orange, am I supposed to go from being frightened to being terrified?” he asks. Mr Copland said he understands that the US government is just doing their job by trying to protect the public, and readily admits he has no easy answers. “All I can do is implore the government to do a better job,” he said. Travel experts in Timesonline were quoted as saying the new US visa rules could deter visitors from across the Atlantic, particularly from the UK, where it said thousands of visitors would have to apply for interviews for new passports. “Tough entry to land of the free,” said a story subhead, which added the US has four million visitors from the UK annually. The new visa and passport requirements will hurt international travel to the US, Mr. Copland agreed, though he declined to estimate any numbers. “Maddening airport check-in delays triggered by security concerns could soon hit online travel reservations as analysts predict a crackdown on Internet air bookings,” wrote Reuters from a London dateline. Mr Copland said it was too early for him to predict the tightened rules’ impact on the internet. But he was not concerned about Americans foregoing travel entirely because of the various threats. He said: “Travel is such a growing force. People are going to continue to travel.”