The silver lining to the battered U.S. economy

When a group of Turkish visitors arrived at their glitzy Foggy Bottom hotel establishment with empty travel bags and several hours of free time, how to reach Pentagon City was their first question. About 12 hours later, they hurried back to the airport, their baggage loaded with bargains.

International tour agencies are increasingly hunting for special experiences and VIP lodgings to sell to customers. Some hotel owners are advertising with a private rooftop dining and wining experience overlooking the White House or limousine trips across Virginia’s wine country and back-of-the-house visits to Smithsonian museums.

If there is some thing positive to America’s battered economy, the hospitality and hotel crowd may have come up with it. International special holidays to the USA seems to be on the rise. Foreign visiting tourists typically are spending two or three times what Americans do on domestic holidays, and the low rate for the dollar creates an incentive to even throw away a couple of bucks more. For significant popular cities such as Orlando, New York and Washington, worldwide tourism may not be entirely negating the domestic downturn’s effects, but it is making the economic blow less severe.