By Andrew L. Jaffee

Fareed Zakaria this week claimed that foreign tourists “are filled with horror stories about the inconvenience and indignity of traveling to America.” Really? Maybe Zakaria should’ve waited to see Black Friday in New York today before making such sweeping pronouncements. From CNNMoney.com:

… Walking around midtown Manhattan on Black Friday, you heard shoppers speaking in a smorgasbord of languages.

With the U.S. dollar as weak as it is - the greenback hit a new low against the euro on Friday - it appears that many Europeans flocked to the Big Apple to go bargain hunting, to the delight of retailers.

Sarah T., who works at the information booth in the Manhattan Mall, which includes stores such as Aeropostale (Charts), Radio Shack (Charts, Fortune 500) and Charlotte Russe (Charts), said that overall traffic during the morning of Black Friday was about the same as last year but that there were far more many tourists at the mall than a year ago. And she said many of them were leaving with armfuls of bags. …

“We are definitely seeing an influx of European, Canadian and South American consumers,” said Terry Lundgren, the chairman and CEO of Macy’s Inc (Charts, Fortune 500). “These economies view the dollar as being on sale.”

Lundgren said that, in addition to the company’s flagship Macy’s, the Bloomingdale’s stores on 59th Street and in SoHo in Manhattan were both experiencing a boost from tourists, as were Macy’s locations in Chicago and San Francisco. …

As evidence of America’s evil plot to scare away tourists, Zakaria dug up a couple of incidents involving travelers who “commit[ed] minor infractions.” Ah, they violated their visas (poor things). What would Zakaria have us do, ignore immigration violations? So we have two cases in a nation of 300,000,000, where most citizens have ties to other countries; so what?

As evidence of the negative feelings supposedly harbored by visitors to the U.S., Fareed tells us to “read the polls or any travelogue on a British Web site” without mentioning any specific poll or website. He’s not even clear that tourism to America is dropping:

… The number of Japanese visiting the United States declined from 5 million in 2000 to 3.6 million last year. The numbers have begun to increase, but by 2010 they’re still projected to be 19 percent below 2000 levels. …

He might as well tell us where the stock markets will be in 2010. This is quantitative evidence? Zakaria’s article is nonsense.

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Related: Europe, Economy, Political Correctness

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