Fighting Terror With the Tour Bus

September 13, 2006 — -- Could the key to improving America's national security be a spin on Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean?

Well, maybe not exactly, but a group of U.S. travel and tourism leaders, including Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, has launched a campaign to attract 10 million more foreign visitors a year to the United States. More international tourists, the Travel Industry Association reasons, could mean a more positive U.S. image around the world and less animosity toward America.

"In an effort to win hearts and minds, we have a unique card to play," says Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, which, like ABC News, is owned by the Walt Disney Co. "That card is an invitation, an invitation to visit America, meet our people and experience our values."

A May 2006 study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that favorability ratings for the United States continue to trail those of other countries. In Western Europe, attitudes toward America were significantly more negative than they were in 2002, before the war in Iraq.

Travel industry executives say the campaign is their answer to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's call to "find better ways to ... [wage] the battle of ideas" in the global war on terrorism. By bringing 10 million more international visitors to the United States each year, they say they can influence the impressions of 1 billion more people a year. It would, of course, also increase revenues for the U.S. travel and tourism industry.

Citing other surveys aside from the Pew study, the industry group says that 72 percent of people who have visited the United States hold a positive opinion of Americans, and 68 percent believe Americans have a high quality of life.

"America's declining image has an enormous impact on the country's economic and national security," says Stevan Porter, president of InterContinental Hotel Group. "With each new visitor we have an opportunity to share what is best about America -- our people, our values and our vitality."