Public Relations Nightmare
May 4th, 2007Usually when someone uses the term PR nightmare they are referring to a completely unplanned and coincidental catastrophe. Every so often however there comes a disaster so painfully obvious by the common man that it boggles everyones mind. The immediate questions are, “how?”, “why?” and of course, “what were you thinking!?”
It begins with a question: ‘How do you insult and piss off a large group of wealthy Arab businessmen including their friends, family and everyone they will ever talk to?’
Answer: Send representatives from the Department of Homeland Security to a Middle East tourism convention to demonstrate fingerprinting required on tourist visas.
Promoters from 64 countries vied this week to lure big-spending Arab tourists to their countries at the Middle East’s largest tourism convention.
But not a single promoter from the United States turned up.
Instead, the U.S. government sent officials from the Department of Homeland Security to demonstrate its mandatory fingerprinting of Arab and other foreign visitors. The only other U.S. presence inside the Americas hall at the show came from a tiny boutique hotel in New York.
Imagine being some rich Kuwaiti businessman walking around the convention hall. You pick up brochures on trips to Rome, Tokyo, London, Sydney and Paris. You turn the corner and see two uptight jerks in suits looking like the Men in Black with badges, a government seal and taking finger prints.
Its quite the economic blunder too considering that Arab tourists from the Gulf countries alone spent over 12 billion dollars in 2005 on trips in the U.S. Someone else capitalized on the stupidity however…
A Kuwaiti tour operator, Thomas Sam, said he booked 1,000 nights of hotel stays for clients traveling to Australia, Europe and Asia. Morocco’s Go Holiday tour operator reported 30 major agreements to handle package tours from Kuwait, Tunisia, Bahrain, Indonesia and Syria. An Emirati operator, Hassan al-Sabbagh said he’d set up new package vacations in Cyprus because of increasing Arab demand.
Seriously who is the idiot who thought sending the Terrorist Catchers (Department of Homeland Security) to a tourist convention would be a smart idea. These people need my expert consultation desperately.
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Why are they so stupid???? I mean, seriously??
Whatever, America’s loss is Europe’s or other Middle Eastern country’s gain. Hopefully those tourists will go and spend their money in Egypt. I don’t see why america wouldn’t want to take advantage of such a prized tourism oppurtunity, particularly since Gulf tourists are usually BIG-SPENDERS. I’m sure hundreds of thousands will continue to make the trip though, and stay at the finest hotels, and shop at the finest boutiques. I think part of it is confidence on the part of upscale tourism brands in the US who feel that they already have a grip on the Arab tourism market. Let’s not forget that a lot of prominent American hotels are either fully or partially Arab-owned.
Reminds me of a Chinese proverb that says “There is nothiing quite as funny as seeing your neighbour fall off his roof”. That’s quite a fall and I have to say that your post was the first thing to make me laugh out loud this morning. I’m certainly not a big spending tourist of any variety, nor a fan of conventions, but I would have loved to see this one.
Frequently other people seem stupid because we ourselves don’t understand. Perhaps you have forgotten that the weapons used on 9-11 were airplanes, hijacked airplanes. Every person on the hijacked airplanes died.
People coming to the United States are air passengers before they become tourists. Giving them reason to believe that security measures are adequate so that their flights will not be hijacked does not seem like such a bad idea.
But then again, I am sure you geniuses all know better.
[...] Side: goes to all the companies at an Arab tourist conference in Egypt that did not showcase mandatory fingerprinting [...]