◎Message of Co-Chairs
Happy New Year to all of our friends in the travel and tourism industries, particularly those of you who have been actively promoting Visit USA. The year of 2001 was a very tough one for all of us, given the slow economy and the post-911 impact on world tourism. With the positive signs of gradual recovery in Taiwan`s economy, a more stable political environment following legislative elections in December, and the world`s war on terrorism bearing fruit, 2002 looks very promising for the travel industry.

As we enter the third year since TVUSAC was founded in May 2000, with the
help of Scott Hsu and his team we are confident that TVUSAC members will
be provided with more up-to-date, valuable information and useful services.
Closer links with the Travel Industry Association and tourism promotion organizations in various states and cities in the United States will enhance Visit USA programs.

The future is looking up. Many major outbound tour operators that we have
spoken with share our optimism. The Taiwan Visit USA Committee wishes all
of our members a happy and prosperous 2002.

◎In the New Century, TVUSAC is Set To Go One Step Further
Mr. Scott Hsu, Executive Director of the Promotional Office, along with his team members who have rich experience in the TV, magazine, travel agent, and airline industries are specialists in tourism marketing, media relation, event planning and new itinerary design. After Mr. Hsu and his team took over the office on Oct. 1. 2001,
the Promotional Office has succeeded in convening an Executive Committee Meeting, and a Members’ Seminar; it also organized a Post-911 Visit U.S.A. Forum, an Annual Membership Meeting and participation in Taipei ITF activities. At the same time, the promotional office conveyed news releases provided by TIA to the local media. The Promotional Office has also reported the activities of TVUSAC and its members to TIA for their reference.

◎Post-911 Visit USA Forum Received Positive Feedback from All Concerned
The 911 attacks had an immense impact on the whole world, and the damage to the travel industry was incalculable. With the assistance of AIT, the Visit USA Committee hosted this special post 911 visit USA forum in the hope that through this face-to-face communication, officials, travel professionals and consumers would have an opportunity to express their opinions freely, and consequently get “travel to the United States” back to normal as soon as possible.
The Forum was held at Taipei American Culture Center on Nov. 13, 2001. AIT Acting Deputy Director Joseph Donovan said that after the 911 attacks, the US government, along with some related organizations, started to take several concrete actions, including the upgrading of security measures at airports and on airlines flights, to ensure the safety of passengers and their property”.
AIT Travel Service Section Chief Keith Powell indicated that although there were some doubts among the public after 911, for most of the American people, life styles, business activities, leisure travel and the like basically remained the same, and nothing has really changed! In Taiwan, AIT continues to issue visas as usual. As matter of fact, visas issued by AIT amount to over 98% of all applications. In another words, this is almost like a visa waived. AIT is thinking of providing extra conveniences for the public to apply for visas, such as the possibility of using courier services to delivery passports to the applicant’s house. This will save time for the applicants and help the market recover sooner”.
Lo Chih-Cheng, a prominent writer who also spoke at the forum, said that, “ In my view, the impact of our slow economy is far more than that of Sept. 11 on the travel downturn. People have their doubts on the safety issue; most of them have seen too many negative media reports, such as the being at war sort of image. The solemn security officers and strict checks in airports, and the requirement to check in three hours prior to departure are considered the most troublesome to the public.” For the travel industry, the most urgent task is to reinforce promotional campaigns and stimulate consumers to come back. Several agencies pointed out that the US government should devote more promotional efforts to the Taiwan market, rather than doing nothing but waiting for tourists to come back.

◎The conclusion of Travel Fair Market Survey
The 9th Taipei International Travel Fair was held one month ago. During the exhibition, TVUSAC handed out a questionnaire to consumers and received over 200 responses. The conclusions of the survey:
Most of the respondents were 21 to 35 years of age, and their average monthly income was between NTD 20,000 and NTD 55,000; 37.5% took vacations abroad once a year, and nearly 25% twice a year. As for where they obtained travel information (multiple choices), 80% indicated that they got it travel magazines, about 40% from travel agency advertising, and more than 40% said they got information from the Internet. Surprisingly, over 90% of the respondents considered the United States, which stood at the top of the chart, as the country they wanted to visit in the next five years; 75 individuals said that the 911 incident had not affected their interest in travel to the U.S., and only four thought that their travel plans had been severely affected by the incident. One thing that we should note is that in spite of 911 incident, New York the Big Apple is still in the top position as consumers’ favorite place to visit, followed by Hawaii, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.
As for the most attractive tourism spots, there was not much difference among theme parks and national parks, arts, museums, wineries, cowboy culture, and music and opera. Actually, every single spot presents its own attraction to consumers.

◎The Website renovation Project
The Committee’s website, www.visitusa.org, is regarded as the best channel to provide travel information such as the newly developed itineraries, and to promote to the general public. However, due to the shortage of the manpower, providing more detailed information to the public is not possible. Hence, the TVUSAC website is now being reconstructed. The whole reconstruction project covers the basic structure of the home page and the inner pages, including the addition of the most updated news along with pictures to brighten up the layout of the front page. The interior pages will be divided into several categories, such as hot news, know America, where to go, travel tips, TVUSAC newsroom, committee members, about TVUSAC and suggestion box. In addition to these, even information such as website data, member activities and tour package prices will be added to the new website as well. Once this project is complete, the website will be able to fully cover what’s happening in the outside world, serve as a tool of communication with the public, and provide our members more practical and detail-orientated services.


◎POW WOW and Visit US Expo
POW WOW, the biggest travel show in the US, will be held in New Orleans on May 25, 2002. This year, it is estimated that the number of the participants will hit a record high. To date, more than 7,000 companies have registered, 16 of them will be from Taiwan. The show is designed for local suppliers to promote their products and services in their own booths to buyers from overseas.
Another important travel show-VISIT US EXPO--will be held in Las Vegas on Sep. 2, 2002. This travel fair is quite different from POW WOW, in that the buyer and supplier positions will be switched the other way around. So far, we estimate that this show will attract around 80 companies from Japan, and 15 to 25 each from the other Asia countries. TVUSAC members can register through the Visit US Expo website, or can ask this office to process their registration.

◎Looking for new travel products and new business directions
Most of the tour programs to United States that travel agencies currently offer are either pretty routine or dull, so that it is hard to convince travelers to come back for a second visit. Therefore, the idea of special interest tours was brought up in this year’s annual membership meeting. The idea obviously attracted a lot of our members, who desperately need a new breakthrough to replace those worn-out itineraries. The United States has such an enormous land mass, and a wide variety of special activities and subjects worth developing; however, they are never well packaged and promoted. How to choose the most suitable theme, and how to reinforce promotion, will be the first priority for consideration. Aside from that, will the new proposals win the support of the airlines? How do we promote the new itineraries to the public? When will be the proper time for promotion? All of these play an important role that will affect the result.
After a long discussion at the annual membership meeting, this conclusion was made: Though the TVUSAC is a non-profit organization, any activity that will benefit visit USA will be the target of our efforts. Therefore, the Committee will consider the details and the potential of every theme tour, and work out a proposal. In the mean time, we will ask for support from AIT, the state representative offices and the airlines involved. Hopefully, our joint efforts will enhance the USA’s share of Taiwan’s outbound market.

◎One step forward in the Year 2002
Starting in January 2002, this promotional office will initiate several new projects. In this way we will not only reinforce TVUSAC’s reputation, but will also can point ourselves in a more efficient and better direction. The projects are:
1. Membership Recruitment
We will recruit more members and sponsorship by organizing a series of presentations to explain the functions of TVUSAC and its benefits to members.
2. Strengthen relations with the media
Since this committee is a non-profit organization, our main job is to focus on promoting image and providing information. We will continuously maintain close relations with the media, in order to establish and build up our position in the industry.
3. Develop Special Interest Tours
At this point, most travel itineraries are either aged or very dreary. It is very hard to attract repeat clients. Thus, we will use various channel, such as attending the POW WOW, and US EXPO fairs, to discover new tourist spots, which are special and worth developing. We will also bring in people who have a strong interest and set up a work team to create a new breakthrough for this market.
4. Website Renovation Project
Websites play a very important role in today’s world. Since our website is not interesting enough and not completely functioning either, it needs to be reconstructed to meet the needs of the rapidly changing world. However, due to the limited budget, it will take a long time to finish the work.
5. Timely delivery of selected information
To expand service to our members, in addition to the steps mentioned above, we will continuously collect all travel-related news from the United States, and e-mail or otherwise distribute it to our members.
6. ITF 2002
The Taipei International Travel Fair will be held on Nov.23rd, 2002. The Committee plans to bring together every US government office in Taipei, along with travel agencies, transportation companies and hotels to join us of in attending this fair and organizing a US pavilion.

Overall, in this year of 2002, this promotional office will do its very best, to exert more efforts and provide more and better services to our members.

＊ Contact Person ：王美美小姐
＊ Tel ：(886)2-2723-1762
＊ Fax ：(886)2-2723-1763
＊ Email ：mei@montana-chinese.org