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Asked why they picked Miami as their gateway to the United States, the Kuehnes beamed and replied in unison: ``The weather!''

The Kuehnes led a group of 43 older German tourists, part of a renewed wave of foreign visitors. International travel to the United States continues to rebound in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and nowhere else is the recovery more evident than in Miami.

After Sept. 11, foreign travel to the United States fell sharply, largely because of increased immigration controls and visa delays. But figures in the newly released Yearbook of Immigration Statistics show that the number of foreign visitors admitted at all major ports of entry in the United States, including Miami, is up for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks. Miami ranked No. 1 in the nation, according to the yearbook.

Yet the picture isn't as rosy as it may seem. Despite the uptick in foreign travelers -- the yearbook counts not only tourists but also those traveling on business and with temporary work visas -- there remains a gap in the number of European tourists heading for Miami.
Visitor surveys by the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau show an 8 percent drop in international visitors last year when compared to 2000, including a steep 17 percent drop in Europeans.

Industry watchers blame part of the decline on Miami-Dade's rising room rates and the conversion of discount hotels into luxury properties.
Cost has not hurt Broward County, where the average room rented for about $30 less than in Miami-Dade. The Broward tourism bureau said international visitors increased 19 percent since 2000.

Konrad Pramsohler, president of American Receptive Tours in Miami Lakes, puts together travel packages for German travelers and said his South Florida sales have dropped 50 percent every year since 2001.

''People are not willing to pay $200 for one night and one day,'' Pramsohler said.
Nevertheless, Florida remains the most popular destination for international visitors -- ahead of California, New York, Texas and Hawaii, according to the yearbook.
The number of foreign travelers processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection passport control officers at Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami-Dade increased in fiscal year 2004, which ended Sept. 30, 2004, for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks -- with almost four million foreign visitors recorded. New York ranked second with 3.6 million visitors.

Overall, a record 11.3 million visitors traveled to Miami-Dade in 2005 and more than 10 million to Broward County. Those previously reported figures include national and international travelers, as well as foreign visitors who came to South Florida after first arriving somewhere else in the country.

Figures in the immigration yearbook are for specific ports of entry such as Miami, New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. They do not include land border crossings or smaller entry ports, such as Fort Lauderdale.

Of the more than 3.8 million foreign visitors admitted at MIA, more than 176,000 came from Germany -- about 17,000 fewer than in 2000, but some 37,000 more than 2003.
''People come to Miami because we are a major crossroads, a world class community,'' William D. Talbert III, who heads the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, said, adding that many foreign tourists stay in the Miami area for a few days and then head to Orlando.

The Kuehnes and their group were headed to Port Everglades, where they planned to board a cruise ship and tour the Caribbean for 14 days.

The Lufthansa flight that brought them is one of several jumbo jets that arrive from Europe every day. Planes and passenger ships brought more than 1.4 million European visitors to Miami in 2004, according to the report. South Americans were the second largest group of foreign travelers admitted through Miami in 2004, with Venezuelans and Colombians leading the contingent.

About 237,000 Colombians traveled to Miami in 2004, compared to almost 252,000 Venezuelans.

Dana Bennaroch and her three young children -- Debbie, Samuel and Enrique -- arrived from Colombia aboard an Avianca flight about an hour before the Kuehnes landed.
Bennaroch, a fashion designer in Medellín, said she traveled to Miami to see her brother and take her children to Miami Beach and Orlando. They planned to stay for 10 days.
''The city is so agreeable and so beautiful,'' Bennarroch said. ``And the children are looking forward to going to Miami Beach, to Orlando and to the Miami Seaquarium. We love Florida.''

Nationally, the travel industry warns the United States is losing market share in the increasingly competitive international travel market.

Roger Dow, president of the Travel Industry Association of America, said everything from visa hassles to the unpopularity of the Iraq war is hurting travel to the United States. And he sees modest improvement in travel numbers as masking a problem, since a weak U.S. dollar should be spurring far larger increases in foreign visitors.

''This is the equivalent of Nordstroms having their half-yearly sale and having the same number of people in the store,'' Dow said.

In all, the yearbook shows more than 30.7 million foreign visitors admitted into the country in fiscal year 2004 -- almost three million more than in 2003, but still below the record 33.7 million in 2000.

Of the 30.7 million admissions in 2004, about 4.8 million cited Florida as their destination on their immigration arrival forms.

Miami Herald staff writer Douglas Hanks III contributed to this report.

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