Legislative Day 2022: Two Big Priorities for ASTA’s ‘Most Significant Day’
经过丹尼尔·麦卡锡(Daniel McCarthy)/
There are few dates more important to the travel trade each year than the annual American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) Legislative Day, which took place this week in Washington, D.C.
The day brings together travel advisors, supplier partners, and ASTA staff to gather and engage with lawmakers about the issues that matter to them the most, the ones impacting their businesses and their bottom lines on a daily basis. It is pure grassroots advocacy that has, time and time again proved to be most effective for shaping legislative agendas.
来自47个州的230多名旅行顾问参加了今年的立法日,只有3个州比其50个国家的目标害羞。Just a few years ago, according to Chris Seddelmeyer, the owner of Ohio’s Travel Concepts and co-chair of ASTA’s Government Affairs Committee, it would be a task to get advisors from 30 states to Legislative Day, which makes this year’s turnout that much more impressive.
“This is the most significant event of the ASTA year,” she said. “Being able to visit our legislators to see how the system works is absolutely incredible.”
Legislative Day could be the only time all year a lawmaker or their staff meet with a travel advisor in person, so the importance of being able to make a connection, and convey a message, to the people making the laws that govern the travel industry can’t be overstated.
The travel trade, and the travel industry in general, had been more affected by COVID-19 and related leftover impacts and legislation than perhaps any other industry. Advisors and agency owners suffered disproportionately through the pandemic, and with corporate travel and long-haul international travel still only on the path to recovery, many are still below 2019 levels despite demand returning.
顾问和代理商所有者本周一直与立法者会面,以使他们意识到这一影响,并恳求他们支持相关,现实的法律,这将帮助该行业恢复康复之路。
“The industry owes you all debt of gratitude for making all of us visible in the eyes of our elected officials,” Zane Kerby, ASTA president and CEO, said to attendees on Tuesday.
但是,Kerby补充说:“国会会议可能很棘手”,因此ASTA竭尽全力为成员和立法日与会者提前做好准备。
How to Save the Travel Trade
在周三的会议之前,旅行社走的成员through legislative training in order to maximize their time on the Hill. Time will always be of the essence during Legislative Day—some meetings will wrap up in the span of 15 minutes—so advisors needed to be prepared to communicate a concise, clear message.
杰西卡·克雷森(Jessica Klement)于去年年底加入ASTA担任倡导副总裁,以及KDCR,两党政府事务公司的合伙人David Peluso和公共事务公司Advocacy Associates的Jason Jordan周二在周二为Advisors提供了失败。
“There are lots of different flavors for how we try to influence public policy,” Jordan said, adding that “amplifying voices of constituents through grassroots advocacy,” like Legislative Day, is one of the most effective “flavors.”
立法者或最常是顾问在周三见面的人,想知道谁是顾问,问题是什么,以及可以采取什么措施来帮助他们,没有政治或大型的最有效的信息附带的报告。
ASTA staff told advisors to tell the person they’re meeting where they’re from and what they do including any personal connections they may have to the lawmaker. Then, tell them how you became a travel advisor and what you specialize in, and tell a personal story about how COVID has affected your business. Be clear, concise, and straightforward and be prepared to roll with the punches, whether that be a time cut or a change in venue.
Those messages, along with personal anecdotes about how COVID-19 is impacting advisors, if delivered correctly, “drive decision making in a way that might surprise you,” Jordan said.
尽管如此,即使在短时间内,也有与立法者或其员工会面的机会,也使顾问有机会建立一种可以在道路上开门的关系。
“This is how you build your influence over the long-term,” Jordan added.
今年的优先事项
就在几周前,ASTA在今年的立法日的优先事项不同。影响业务最大的问题是美国的入站测试要求,这将是今年政府宣传的两个主要重点之一。
几周前,备受关注的新闻说,美国正在放弃这一任务 - “将会生活在快乐的日子,”埃本·佩克(Eben Peck)补充说,这是一个机会,可以在山上快速重新评估优先事项。
Aside from messages of gratitude for the lawmakers who helped make that happen, ASTA stressed two priorities for the meetings.
优先级#1
首先是恢复员工保留税收抵免(ERTC),自从ASTA一直强调的是dropped as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year。
While the ERTC is not applicable to ICs, agencies with at least one employee relied on it for relief, and planned on it being part of their bottom line, as business still struggled to come back.
“The rug got pulled out from under them,” Peck said, adding that the move was “completely unfair.”
The goal was to get the ERTC retroactively restored starting in quarter four of 2021. That would need to happen as part of a legislative vehicle, either through Build Back Better reconciliation, theUSICA/中国竞赛法案, or a change to the year-end tax bill.
除此之外,这在山上面临的阻碍是,已花费了6万亿美元用于Covid救济,一些立法者将寻求抵消ERTC修复的成本(约80亿美元)。但是,佩克说:“人们为此计划,国会夺走了它”,民选官员有责任为这些计划预算,而不是该计划的接收者。
优先级#2
今年第二大优先级是通过of the Visit America Act. That is a bipartisan act that establishes an Assistant Secretary of Travel and Tourism within the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The U.S. remains the only G20 country without a federal agency or cabinet-level official in charge of tourism policy, and while the Act wouldn’t put someone at the cabinet level, it would represent significant progress, adding a high-level official to work with partners across the world on travel issues.
根据佩克(Peck)的说法,大流行强调了多少没有人监督该行业影响了从事旅行工作的人。
“The pandemic highlighted the scattered nature of federal oversight of the travel trade,” he said.
除了该职位外,它还需要商务部制定和实施COVID-19,以帮助旅行和旅游业继续恢复。
“We’ve been talking about this for two years,” he said, adding that it would help travel and tourism prepare for “the next big disruption” to the industry.
此后,最初的2021年3月访问美国法案已成为一项更广泛的综合旅行和旅游法,该法案于2021年12月从参议院商务委员会中脱颖而出。佩克也对《访问美国法案》获得了支持,因为与ERTC恢复相比缺乏成本,因此获得了支持。