Rhode Island tourism officials, educators, business people, reps of the US Travel Association, and the state's 2 Congressmen met in Providence last week to consider the opportunities and threats facing the RI tourism industry.

Important current issues identified include fewer international visitors to USA, and fewer international students in RI.

Tourism contributes $4.4B annually to the RI economy, along with 83,000 jobs.

Surprisingly, shortage of temporary summer workers seems not to have emerged as a challenge. What is RI doing that no other New England state has been able to do to overcome the problem of too few H2B visas being available?