Tourism Industry Looks for Overseas Boost at Pow Wow

Fort Lauderdale showed off its “Immersadome,” which offers guests a 3-D audio-visual tour of the area complete with special effects, such as wind in your face during an Everglades airboat ride and floral aromas inside a spa.

Madame Tussaud’s New York wax museum touted a life-size replica of President Barack Obama, which prompted visitors to line up and smile for keepsake photographs.

America’s travel destinations were putting their best foot forward this week at Pow Wow, the largest international convention for U.S. tourism.

Eager to lure more foreign visitors at a time of drooping domestic travel, more than 1,000 U.S. businesses and travel groups had exhibits at this year’s trade show, which took place in Miami Beach for the first time in a decade.

U.S. attractions and others were meeting with about 1,500 travel buyers and 500 travel writers from some 70 countries. As a group, the buyers were expected to book about $4 billion worth of business from the event, according to the U.S. Travel Association, the show’s main organizer.

With corporate sponsors cutting back during the recession, this year’s Pow Wow relied heavily on Miami-Dade County taxpayers. Organizers expected to spend more than $2.2 million on Pow Wow by the time it ended last night, with about $1.6 million coming from Miami-Dade government and the tax-funded Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau.