Study: improved tourist visa laws would add billions in revenue and thousands of jobs within five years

Improved tourist visa laws would add more than $7.5 billion in U.S. revenue and create 50,000 U.S. jobs within five years, according to a report released Monday by The Partnership for a New American Economy.

The report, “Passport to Future Economic Growth: How Expanding the Visa Waiver Program Will Strengthen the U.S. Economy and Create American Tourism Jobs,” found that when a country joins the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, the United States sees a notable increase in the number of tourists from that country in the immediate years that follow. Over the course of its first five years in the program, the number of tourists arriving from a participating country rises by 16.4 percent.