U.S. tourism slows

Tourism pumps trillions of dollars a year into the U.S. economy. But the nationwide visitor industry is growing at less than a quarter of the overall pace of U.S. economic expansion, according to a Monday report from Washington, D.C. The U.S. Commerce Department, using figures from the second quarter, reckons that the U.S. economy is growing at an annual pace of 4% but the tourism sector is growing only 0.9%, despite more tourism hiring in the previous quarter. Airline business overall has actually been shrinking, especially international business. There are several reasons for this:

• Americans have been losing the fear of overseas travel that erupted after 9/11, so more of us have been vacationing outside the United States.
• Some Europeans who disapprove of the Iraq intervention are disinclined to visit America just now.
• Discount carriers in Europe have made it cheap for Europeans to take European vacations. 
• With the yen strong, the Japanese have been taking more European vacations. But lately the yen has also strengthened against the dollar, making Hawaii vacations cheaper. Sure enough, Japanese arrivals bottomed out in July.

Hawaii tourism remains at or near historic highs, despite massive increases in hotel room rates. But those rate increases appear to be squeezing restaurateurs and tour companies, since Hawaii visitor spending is up much less than the increase in hotel room charges. In other news... A magazine for new mothers has an article called, "Pimp Your Stroller." I am not making this up. Marcel Marceau died and we said nothing about it. Your assignment: Figure out how a mime would think outside the box. Malcolm Forbes once wrote a book collecting famous alleged last words. The book's title: "They Went Thataway." The best entry in the book: "Either that wallpaper goes or I do."