As part of its ongoing efforts to work with Congress to help bolster international tourism, the Travel Business Roundtable (TBR) is pleased that Congress passed the Fiscal year (FY) 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill (HR 4818 H Rept 108-792) on Saturday, November 20. This bill includes a provision providing $10 million to the Department of Commerce for funding an international destination marketing program. TBR and other industry organizations have worked continually to ensure that additional funding was appropriated to the initial destination marketing program, which will be launched in the United Kingdom in mid-December.

Originally, $20 million had been written into the Senate version of the Commerce-Justice-State (CJS) Appropriations bill, but negotiations between the House and Senate led to this $10 million appropriation. It is important to note that an across-the-board rescission will be applied to all provisions in the FY05 Omnibus. This means that 0.83 percent of funding from every measure in the bill, including this $10 million, will be cut in order to fund additional programs that were left out of the original bill.

However, the funds will remain available until September 30, 2006, and the Commerce Department and the United States Travel and Tourism Advisory Board will work together to determine how they will be used.

"We are very grateful to Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young (R-FL) for their support of the restoration of a portion of the original $50 million that was rescinded in the FY04 Omnibus Appropriations bill," said Jonathan Tisch, Chairman of TBR and Chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels. "Although inbound travel has started to increase, we are still losing market share to other countries who spend millions of dollars promoting themselves to the world and must do more to bring international travelers to the U.S."