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The weak dollar has attracted many more foreign tourists to spend big in the US.

 When Turkish tourists arrived at their chic Foggy Bottom hotel with empty suitcases and a few hours of free time, the first thing they asked was how to get to Pentagon City. Twenty-four hours later, they headed back to the airport, their luggage bulging with bargains.

According to The Washington Post, a Scandinavian journalist, on each of his three trips to Washington this year, made a similar beeline for Trader Joe's to stock up on cashews and other treats that are cheaper in the United States.

International travel agents are increasingly on the prowl for VIP accommodation and special experiences to sell to clients. Some hoteliers are responding with private rooftop dinners overlooking the White House, back-of-the-house visits to Smithsonian museums and limousine tours of Virginia's wine country.

If there is a silver lining to the battered US economy, the hotel and hospitality crowd may have found it. International travel to the United States - increasingly with a high-end flavour - appears to be on the rise.

Foreign tourists typically spend two or three times what Americans do on US vacations, and the weak dollar creates an incentive to splurge even more. For gateway cities such as Washington, New York and Orlando, international tourism may not be completely negating the effects of the domestic downturn, but it is softening the economic blow.

One way the hotel industry hopes to weather the slowing economy is by maximising revenues from foreign travellers, Marriott International chief executive Bill Marriott said in an MSNBC interview last week during a hospitality industry investment conference at New York University.

"There's a whole new bunch of travellers over there, China, India . . . Russia," Marriott said.

The number of international visitors to the US increased 15 per cent in the first three months of this year from 2007, and rose by 7.2 per cent in the District of Columbia, according to the Commerce Department.

From January through April, the number of international passengers arriving at Reagan National or Washington Dulles International airports increased nearly 11 per cent, to 1.8 million, from last year, according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.