AFP - Looking to reverse a decade-long slump in US tourism, the US Congress was poised Thursday to send President Barack Obama a bill to launch a charm offensive to woo free-spending overseas travelers.

The Senate was to vote before the weekend on the legislation, which would use corporate contributions and government monies to spend as much as 100 million dollars per year to attract visitors. The House has already passed it.

Critics of the plan note that it would partly be paid for by a 10-dollar fee imposed on travelers from visa-waiver countries, mostly in Europe, and warn that the additional expense could deter some would-be sightseers.

Supporters point to a forecast by the impartial Congressional Budget Office that the bill would create some 40,000 US jobs -- a potent draw amid high unemployment and mid-term elections in November -- and deflate the ballooning US deficit by some 425 million dollars.

The US Travel Association industry group estimates that a 10-year drop in US tourism -- much of it after the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes -- has cost some 440,000 jobs and a half-trillion dollars in related spending.

The average overseas visitor to the United States is estimated to spend roughly 4,000 dollars, and 1.8 million fewer of them came in 2009 than in 2008, according to the group's analysis of US Commerce Department figures.

While 46.3 million more travelers took long-haul trips worldwide in 2009 than in 2000, the United States has welcomed 2.4 million fewer guests over the same period, the US Travel Association said.

The legislation has an important political component, not least because Democratic US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who represents Nevada and its Las Vegas gambling capital, faces an uphill reelection fight.