After edging down by 3,900 in September, the U.S. travel industry added 11,000 jobs in October, which accounted for more than one in eight of the total jobs created and marked the biggest increase since June, according to David Huether, senior vice president of economics and research at the U.S. Travel Association. Overall employment growth slowed to just 80,000 in October following an upwardly revised addition of 158,999 jobs in September, while unemployment remained essentially unchanged at 9 percent. Since the employment recovery began in March 2010, the travel industry has created 209,000 jobs and has increased 1.7 times faster than the rest of the economy. 

"Still, the pace of job growth in both the travel industry as well as the economy overall has decelerated during the past four months compared to the first half of the year. With the housing sector still in the doldrums, it is important for policy makers to look to alternative measures to help the fragile economy. One of the most efficient and least-costly efforts that would have the biggest bang for the buck would be to improve our nation's burdensome visa process, which would help boost international visitation, domestic spending, and job creation in the United States. Over the past decade the U.S. has lost a considerable amount of market share in international visitation to our global competitors, and simply recovering that lost share would increase employment in the U.S. by 467,000, which is roughly equal to the total number of jobs created since June."