White House Conference

Through developing and directing a year and a half comprehensive policy and marketing campaign, the National Tour Association had the largest delegation and presence of any travel and tourism organization to attend the industry’s historic White House Conference on Travel and Tourism.

State Legislative Activity

Regulations
1994-1996, Successful in opposing sellers of travel regulations in Missouri, Maryland and New Jersey. Successful in opposing stricter regulations in New York, California, Oregon and Washington State.

Grassroots Legislative Network
Developed and oversaw the first grassroots legislative network for the National Tour Association. More than 500 members participated in this network which included state leaders, a monthly newsbrief, training manual and on-line communications.

State Legislative Receptions
Coordinated the first-ever state legislative receptions for the association to build relationships with nation’s state legislators.

State Compliance Package
Designed and Implemented the first-ever compliance package of state laws regulating sellers of travel.

Coordinated the association’s presence at the premier gathering of state legislators, the NCSL Annual Meeting. Due to a well-directed marketing campaign, association representatives met with 900 legislators over a three-year period at the meetings.

Relieved Members of Possible Regulations in the following cases:

October 1994, a per passenger National Park Service entrance fee to be enforced with only 30 days notice was reversed.

March 1995, a proposed policy by Yosemite National Park to radically increase commercial user fees with less than 30 days notice was reversed.

1995-1996, a three year lobbying effort to include park fee protective language for tour operators in both pending national parks fee bill (H.R. 2107 and S. 1144) was successful.

Others:

November 1995, Close work with the National Parks and Conservation Association resulted in defeat of H.R. 260, an initiative to remove National Parks from the U.S. Park System.

1994-1996, a two-year campaign thwarted an attempt by major non-profits to liberalize the Unrelated Business Income tax definition of “educational” tours.