Opinion: US has always welcomed tourists, visitors. Politics, tariffs, bullying ends that.
The world is watching “the politics of global images” in action today. These images are the mental pictures, globally held views that people have of different places — nations, cities, natural and historic heritage sites. Politics, various leaders’ and citizens’ actions, diplomacy and the media, shape images of places, positive or negative, held by others worldwide.
Establishing positive images of a place requires time to build and gain global acceptance. Destroying these images can happen rapidly through political leaders’ damaging actions, decisions and statements. Recovering, if ever, is a slow climb back after images of a place have been tarnished.
Now my country and my city are both confronting serious threats caused by their own political actions that can already or soon destroy long established, positive global images. My country, the USA, and my hometown, Asheville, in Western North Carolina, are each facing varying threats to long-held images attracting world tourism brought about by activities of top governmental, educational, civic leaders.
The United States has long been viewed as a welcoming country for tourists and immigrants, a democracy where “freedom rings” and first amendment rights and freedom of travel are ideally enjoyed by all. This year has brought radical changes and now a notable drop in tourism.
World news focuses on reported causes: U.S. government withdrawing long standing welcomes to world visitors and immigrants, raising prices of entry, leaders’ bullying, insulting other nations' leaders, imposing huge tariffs on other countries’ goods, conducting surveillance of visitors’ freedom of speech comments on social media, even threatening to take over other nations’ territory. All these and more are definitely damaging the USA image in the world.
An immediate consequence is the radical decline in our tourism. This loss of national tourism affects tourism to U.S. cities. Yet cities can still practice their own “city diplomacy” to promote the attraction of their particular place for those tourists who still come to this country.
Asheville has long been a major tourist destination for domestic and international tourists. Even as far back as 1859, a guidebook, “Mountain Scenery” by my great-great uncle Henry Elliott Colton, heralded North Carolina’s main mountain town’s natural beauty and charm.
A year ago, I wrote here in this newspaper’s opinion pages promoting the importance of city diplomacy for such a place as Asheville that depends on tourism. In that column last July, I emphasized the warning against unbridled development in such a delicate natural environment.
Since then, on Sept. 27 last year, a devastating storm from Hurricane Helene, with torrential rains, mini-tornadoes, winds, and flooding, did incalculable destruction to the city and entire WNC region. People’s resilience in coming together to rebuild has been remarkable, noted in much reporting about the unfathomable disaster experienced here.
Still, beyond the natural devastation and rebuilding, other kinds of political action allowing man-made destruction of the environment can do more damage to the global image of Asheville.
Today the public UNC Asheville is moving against widespread civic protest to clear the way to cement over a 54-acre tract of the city’s remaining urban forest. Yet the city insists it has no power to halt development. UNCA’s flaunting of “save the woods” public opinion urging conserving the city’s basic natural touristic attraction is shocking.
By contrast, last year here we hailed an important civic partnership among the city’s Buncombe County, the private Warren Wilson College and Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy that brought about conservation of 600 acres of the small college’s mountain farmland and forests. This public-private collaboration has saved that natural endowment for posterity.
The catastrophic hurricane and its aftermath have done more than anything to demonstrate the value of our natural environment and the critical importance of not giving into over-development. To say we were given a wake-up call would be an understatement.
This is an urgent reminder to my hometown and home country to preserve and promote the basic positive reasons for their previous attraction in the world. Asheville must preserve its essential attraction - its natural environment-scenery. The USA must quickly resume, preserve and promote its treasured freedoms and welcome to the world. The “politics of global images” is real.
Elizabeth (Liz) Colton, author, diplomat, teacher and Emmy Award winning journalist, teaches diplomacy and the media worldwide for UNITAR and partner international universities. She currently serves as Diplomat & Journalist in Residence at Warren Wilson College.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: US has global image as hostile, unwelcoming to tourists, immigrants