"Welcome to LA, where the world comes together," reads the greeting from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at Los Angeles International Airport.

But standing in one of the interminable queues that snake into the non-resident alien section of LAX recently, waiting to clear United States immigration and customs, it was clear that for many people their first hours on US soil were dominated by anxiety and frustration rather than anticipation of good times past the barrier.

Welcome to America, where officials who work for the Department of Homeland Security, which was set up after the 2001 terrorist attacks, have a major image problem.

In a recent poll of international travellers, commissioned by Discover America Partnership, a coalition of US tourist organisations, 70 per cent of respondents said they feared US officials more than terrorists or criminals. Another 66 per cent worried they would be detained for some minor blunder, such as wrongly filling out an official form or being mistaken for a terrorist, while 55 per cent say officials are "rude."

Such fears are fuelled by the horror stories. Earlier this year a friend of mine was detained for hours and strip-searched at LAX for a minor visa infraction. He was finally allowed to enter the US, on the condition he departed the next day. "I won't be coming back," he said.

In a January Listener article New Zealand journalist Marilyn Head described how she missed a flight after being treated like a criminal by US airport guards.

"I left the US vowing never to return," she wrote. "I'm not alone."

She's right. Head's experience echoes that of many disgruntled tourists who have bitter memories of treatment meted out by US immigration officials.

Before September 11, US airport staff often seemed to err on the laid-back rather than on the vigilant side. Now some overzealous officials appear to regard all tourists as potential terrorists. Entering America can feel like running the gauntlet.

"We are citizens of a country regarded as one of the closest allies the US has," frequent British visitor Ian Jeffrey told the Orlando Sentinel last November. "Yet on arrival we are treated like suspects in a criminal investigation and made to feel very unwelcome."

Such comments, and the poll results - which rate the US by a 2:1 margin as the world's "most unfriendly" destination for foreign travellers - are found in "A Blueprint to Discover America," unveiled in January by Discover America Partnership to halt a dramatic decline in foreign visitors.

According to the blueprint overseas travel to the US has slumped 17 per cent since 2001, even as world travel to other countries reaches historic growth levels. The decline has cost US$94 billion ($127 billion) in visitor spending, US$16 billion in tax receipts, and some 194,000 American jobs. Many poll respondents said that visiting the US had become a hassle and that they would take their holiday money elsewhere.