Remarks by Deputy Assistant Secretary Alex Lasry at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Thematic Event on Tourism- APRIL 16
New York, New York
April 16, 2024
As Delivered
Thank you, I am Alex Lasry, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Travel and Tourism in the International Trade Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
I am excited to be here today to discuss the U.S. government’s work at the intersection of tourism policy, sustainability, and data.
In my role, I oversee the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), which is the main point of contact for travel and tourism in the federal government.
As we are part of the International Trade Administration, our goal is to enhance the international competitiveness of the U.S. travel and tourism industry and increase travel and tourism exports, thereby creating jobs and economic growth.
Travel and tourism touches more than a dozen federal agencies, so collaboration across the federal government is imperative, and we lead efforts in this area.
The travel and tourism economy and the environment are deeply intertwined, and tourism has the potential to be a driver for conservation and sustainability.
Data plays a pivotal role in the effort to make tourism more sustainable.
Our office collects data on travel and tourism’s economic impact across the United States, and we are working across the U.S. Department of Commerce to explore ways to increase data on travel and tourism’s relationship with the environment.
NTTO is the only source in the federal government that collects, analyzes, and disseminates U.S. travel and tourism data.
Specifically, NTTO produces research and data on: Visitor volume (arrivals and departures) of international travelers to and from the United States, as well as the characteristics of these travelers through the Survey of International Air Travelers; Travel trade statistics; and Economic impact of the travel and tourism industry through the Travel and Tourism Satellite Account.
Over the past two years, NTTO has made a comprehensive effort to make our data more accessible and interactive.
We have transformed our previously static data to create eight interactive data monitors, where users can explore visual graphs and filter data to fit their needs.
We also publish fact sheets on all of our data programs, where users can find top-line statistics on travel and tourism.
The 2022 National Travel and Tourism Strategy, which guides U.S. government work on tourism policy and development, sets the goal to welcome 90 million international visitors, who we estimate will spend $279 billion annually, by 2027.
However, simply increasing travel and tourism is not our only goal.
As we have all learned post-pandemic, growth in travel and tourism must be done in a sustainable way that spreads the benefits of tourism across local communities and populations.
The Strategy therefore aims to increase not only the volume, but the value of tourism by focusing on increasing diversity, inclusivity, sustainability, and resiliency within the sector.
The Strategy also recognizes the important role data plays in achieving more sustainable travel and tourism policy.
It sets actions to: Communicate data on climate-related events and risks to travel and tourism communities in a way that is more easily understood, relevant, and actionable; Encourage linkages among data-producing programs to avoid data silos and facilitate a more holistic approach to data-based resiliency; and increase access to regional and localized data related to climate change and natural disasters.
Additionally, President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad puts climate at the center of U.S. foreign policy and national security through a whole-of-government approach.
Further, in January 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration released the final National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions, a roadmap to include nature’s critical contributions to the U.S. economy, including tourism accounting.
The statistics strategy supports the recommendation to develop and expand, where possible, the Travel and Tourism Satellite Account to include natural capital and other information organized in environmental-economic statistics.
While our office collects substantial data on the economics of tourism, these efforts will support collecting metrics on climate change, emissions, and broader tourism sustainability, which will be beneficial for our government and private sector partners.
The U.S. Department of Commerce was pleased to participate in meetings of the experts focused on developing the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism or SF-MST.
As the United States works to increase its own measurement on sustainable tourism, the SF-MST will fulfill an important need for an international framework for countries and destinations to measure their progress towards sustainability goals.
It is a pivotal step towards more credible and harmonized data on the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of travel and tourism.
I would like to congratulate the United Nations Statistics Division and UN Tourism on the impressive program and its contribution to measuring tourism’s effect on people, the economy, and the planet.
We look forward to continuing our collaboration in this area.
Thank you for inviting me to participate today and I look forward to the discussion.