View From Afar S1, E6: IPW 2025 | Geoff Freeman, President and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association

I’m Michelle Baran, deputy editor at Afar. Welcome to View From Afar, a podcast that spotlights the people and ideas shaping the future of travel. And in this special series, I’m coming to you live from the floor of IPW, the annual travel conference organized by the U.S. Travel Association to share the best of America with the rest of the world.

This year the conference is held in Chicago. And it’s a rather interesting year to be talking about travel in the United States: In March 2025, data from the World Travel & Tourism Council showed that international visits to the U.S. had decreased, resulting in an estimated $12 billion loss in tourism revenue. At the same time, the country is gearing up for America’s 250th anniversary—and the energy is palpable. So at IPW, my colleague Billie Cohen and I sat down with travel industry leaders and executives to bring you the biggest conference news and insights and to share what’s on the horizon for America’s 250th birthday.

You’ll hear each of those conversations over the following week.

In this episode, I’m talking with Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. This is the nonprofit trade group that advocates for the U.S. travel industry, and it’s the group behind the IPW conference where Geoff and I are meeting.

During Geoff’s first tenure with U.S. Travel, he helped establish Brand USA, the country’s first national tourism marketing arm. He briefly left to lead the American Gaming Association, where he expanded membership to include Native-owned casinos, among other accomplishments. He then rejoined U.S. Travel in 2022. In his current role, he has helped to spearhead a postpandemic recovery effort, reinforcing the critical role travel and tourism plays in contributing to the larger U.S. economy.

There is perhaps no one better suited to discuss the current state of travel within the United States, as the country prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence.

Transcript

Michelle: Welcome, Geoff! Thanks so much for being here.

Geoff: Thank you for having me.

Michelle: So, I’m even surprising myself with this first question. I sort of realized that we need to back up a little bit and get a better understanding of what U.S. Travel even is and does and how it works together with Brand USA, because I don’t think that’s always clear for everybody.

Geoff: And it’s ironic because we created Brand USA, so it’s ironic, right? So the U.S. Travel Association represents the totality of the travel industry, airlines, airports, theme parks, hotels, rental car companies, gaming companies, every destination from coast to coast.

When you have an industry that diverse, there isn’t a whole lot everybody agrees on, but the one thing that unites everybody is we want to increase travel. If you can just increase travel, then we can kind of kill each other for share, which is then the driving focus of U.S. Travel. How do we get out there and increase travel? Fifteen years ago, a little over that, we recognized that the U.S. was losing a lot of international visitors, particularly post 9/11, people weren’t coming here in the numbers that they used to. There were a variety of reasons for that, but one reason for that was that the U.S. was the only developed nation in the world that didn’t market itself abroad.

We never, as a country, encourage people to come to America. Well, that’s why we created Brand USA. We worked with the federal government to create Brand USA. It is the entity that is marketing the United States outside of the United States. We are the entity that is working in the United States to fix travel policy, to bring the industry together, to learn from one another, to educate, and provide research and data. To do the things that an industry does together, while Brand USA effectively encourages people outside the U.S. to come see what we have to offer. Right.

Michelle: Right. And so effectively it works similarly to tourism boards, for example, in other countries.

Geoff: Brand USA would be the nation’s destination marketing organization. So they are that DMO, just like we have one in every state, in every major city in America. That’s what Brand USA does, and they’ve got a great opportunity to help explain to people around the world that we want their business, help explain some of the various travel policies that we have, and otherwise encourage people to come spend their hard-earned dollars in America.

Michelle: Right. So, speaking of opportunities, as we begin to celebrate America 250, what are the ways in which the industry should be capitalizing on this moment? Especially given the complexities of the U.S. brand right now.

Geoff: Yeah, the U.S. is uniquely positioned right now.

We have a decade of really incredible events coming up that really spotlight the United States and encourage people around the world to consider a trip to the United States, whether it is the Club World Cup that just kicked off recently, the World Cup, which kicks off next summer along with America’s 250th birthday, the Olympics in L.A. in 2028.

We have this run of events that are going to really have the potential to encourage people to check out the United States. So the opportunity we have here is to capitalize on the fact that all eyes are on the United States, really address policy shortcomings with visas, with our customs process, address perception issues. You mentioned it’s a complex time right now. Increasingly, people in many parts of the world wonder, does the U.S. want my business? Do they want me to stay away? They’re worried they might be detained at customs or have their device searched. You know, we have an opportunity here to go out and clear up those misperceptions, encourage people to come to the United States, and capitalize on a really unique set of opportunities with this just run of event after event after event.

Michelle: So what would you say are the biggest challenges and how do you guys approach them?

Geoff: Yeah, it’s, first of all, I think we have to acknowledge there are challenges that are outside of our control and challenges that are of our own making, you know, that which is outside our control.

The U.S. dollar is strong. It makes visiting the United States expensive for many people. There’s not a whole lot we are going to do as a travel industry to weaken the dollar, number one. When you look at people who are maybe coming from Asia, the fact that we still have the war going on, the Russia-Ukraine war, limits, the ability to fly over Russian airspace makes flying here from the west much more difficult, right?

That’s something that’s beyond our control to resolve. And those are big issues and those discouraged travel. What is in our control are long visa wait times. You know, if you’re in Colombia or India, some of these other markets around the world, it takes hundreds of days just to get an interview for the right to come to the United States and spend your money.

How do we speed that up and operate just much more efficiently so we can get people into the country? How, when they come through customs, do we ensure that we speed them through customs and people don’t have a 3-hour wait at an airport, after having a 14-hour flight to get here, right? That’s within our control.

And then the other thing that’s within our control is this perception, as I mentioned, that the U.S. might not be as welcoming. That we don’t want travelers to come. We need to correct that misperception. We need to be loud and clear. Unapologetic America wants your business. I’ve seen some efforts at that from the Trump administration. I’ve seen other things that create confusion. The more we can double down on sending the world a message that we want legitimate travelers. We want the people who are looking to come here, have experiences and then go home and tell their friends and family to go do the same thing.

Michelle: Right. And it’s important because travel and tourism contributes a lot to the U.S. economy, so let’s talk about how much it does contribute to the U.S. economy in terms of jobs and revenue and what the potential is.

Geoff: Yeah. Travel drives about $2.9 trillion a year in spending, supports 15 million jobs in this country. It does that not just in big cities, but in small towns all over the country. It’s one of the unique benefits of the travel industry. It touches every nook and cranny of the United States. The more travelers we have, the stronger the industry is. We’re here at IPW right now, which is a conference that is only focused on international inbound, right?

International inbound is not a huge percentage of our travelers, but a massive percentage of our spending. In New York City, for example, international travelers make up 17 percent of all visitors, but they make up 50 percent of all the spending that takes place. You know, in Washington, D.C., it’s 8 percent of visitors, but 25 percent of the spending that takes place.

These are travelers who spend on average seven times more than Americans when they travel around. It is of incredible importance to us. Last year we welcomed about 73 million international visitors. They spent a little over $180 billion. But unfortunately that’s 5 million fewer visitors than we welcomed before the pandemic. So we’ve got our work to do to get those numbers up and really drive the spending the way we could.

Michelle: So what are some of our biggest international source markets, and which international source markets are growing, and which ones are losing?

Geoff: Sure. Yeah. Our, you know, our biggest markets, obviously when you look right here in our hemisphere, Canada and Mexico are big source markets. When you go to Western Europe, big source markets, the U.K., Germany, France; Brazil [is] a big market. And then in Asia, we have had great success over the years with Japan and with China and with other markets; that has changed a bit now in terms of what’s growing.

I think there are aspects of Latin America that are very strong. They tend to not be as affected by a lot of the noise that’s in the market. We’ve seen good travel patterns from Argentina and some of the other Latin American markets. I think when you look at Western Europe, I think they’re affected by the high cost of travel to the United States. We’re feeling some of that right now in Italy and Germany, perhaps the U.K. a little bit too. The U.S. though is the world’s most desired nation to visit. People want to come here. We just need to figure out, how do we make it happen? How do we unlock them? How do we get them here? Some of the cost issues will fluctuate as the economy fluctuates.

If we take care of these other issues, I think we’ll see the travel, the numbers we want to.

Michelle: So in terms of, we talked about sort of the economic value of travel and tourism, but what are the benefits of having a thriving travel and tourism industry, beyond the economic value?

Why is it important that we continue to advocate for and ensure the growth of this industry for years to come?.

Geoff: I could come at that question from so many different angles. Where I’ll start is, I think the pandemic did a lot of damage, but it did some good things as well. And the best thing it did was really help people connect with what’s important.

The biggest outcome of the pandemic is people chose to prioritize experiences over goods. You know, before the pandemic, we were buying TVs and toasters and everything else. Now people want to buy memories. They want to have more experiences. They want travel, they want be at live events. They want to do things that they cherish.

That’s an upside for travel, but it also speaks to the importance of travel. It satisfies a human need. For connection, a human need for memory, a human need for nostalgia, right? Travel helps to fill that. The benefits of travel, as I mentioned before, they’re not isolated to any one market.

They go down through every aspect of the U.S. economy, every corner of the country, benefiting from what travel has to offer when we travel—and this is my favorite aspect about it—it stretches our minds. You know, it’s very easy to sit at home. And feel that that country over there is unsafe, or that destination even here in the United States that I see on TV, all this violence, and then I go there and I realize it’s clean, it’s safe.

There may be things like in every city that happen in the corner of the city, but they’re not what you experience. They’re not what dominates it. I think travel really opens our minds. Makes us a little bit more understanding, a little bit more thoughtful, and a little bit more connected with our fellow citizens, right?

That’s the benefit of this. That’s why I think as a country, we shouldn’t be so hands-off with travel. We should be doing more to encourage it. We should be doing more to promote it. That doesn’t necessarily mean marketing. That just means fixing, fixing the problems that are out there that make it easier for people to go have these experiences and these connections.

Michelle: Right? Absolutely. In terms of, you know, obviously it’s such an important mission, so what kind of support do you need most from legislators and Washington to help the travel industry continue to grow? And are you getting the support that you need?

Geoff: Yeah, I’ve often been amazed at how hands-off policymakers are and how little they have done to give Americans the travel experience they deserve.

Michelle: Yeah, why is that?

Geoff: Right? I think it comes back, there are a variety of reasons, but I think as a public, we’re too tolerant of the inefficiencies. I think we should be more intolerant. We have an antiquated air travel system, one that is embarrassing in many respects in terms of the lack of investment in technology. We’re 3,000 air traffic controllers short. Ninety percent of air traffic control centers are understaffed.

We’re using technology that isn’t even as advanced as the GPS you have in your car. Right, there’s no excuse for that. It’s about funding, it’s about focus. It’s about demanding a better outcome. That’s where policymakers can play a bigger role, and it’s where Secretary Duffy at the Department of Transportation, for example, is playing a bigger role.

He’s embraced that challenge and really leaned into building a better aviation system. We’re grateful for his efforts there. I think when you look at, you know, most travelers go by road. What is their experience? Have we made the investments in infrastructure that we should? I think there are a lot of places around the country where we can do better and we should do better by our travelers.

We’re here in Chicago right now. I think it could be smoother getting from downtown to O’Hare, and the smoother it is, the more likely people are to travel. Let’s make those investments. Let’s give people the experiences they deserve. And it’s not unique to Chicago, it’s true around the country where I think if we take a step back and figure out, how do we create a seamless experience? How do we create efficiencies for the traveler? We will have much better outcomes. I think too often policy makers think that travel just happens. But you know, I’ll give you the example of business travelers. Coming out of the pandemic. business travelers have choices today they didn’t have before.

They can use Zoom, they can use Teams. They can sit in their home office. The more inefficiencies there are, the more likely they are to use Zoom. And just think of all the economic consequences of sitting in there and using Zoom as opposed to flying to that destination, staying in the hotel, going to the drugstore to pick up some things you forgot, going to the store next door to buy something for your wife, right?

All these, the things that happen when you travel. That’s what we need to encourage.

Michelle: Right, right. And it’s interesting—how do conversations happen between the public sector and the private sector, and who’s paying for what, and who’s investing in what so that it all works?

Geoff: Yeah, I think for the most part, what the industry is doing at a local level is working very well with local governments to make the systems work. You look at a place like Las Vegas where it’s pretty darn seamless when you get into Reed Airport, getting down to the strip, getting into your property, right?

They’ve made a pretty seamless experience. Orlando has made a lot of really great investments in giving you a more seamless experience. They’re all working together. I think we need more of that. The traveler doesn’t look at things through the silos of aviation, lodging, rental car. They look at the whole experience. And the more we as an industry are thinking like our customer, the more likely we will be to increase consumption of the product that we have to offer.

Michelle: Right. So what do you think is our biggest competition in that sense? Is it other destinations that are doing it better?

Geoff: Make no mistake, we’ve got competitors, particularly for international travelers that are often out-competing us. They’re just taking big steps. For example, they’re letting more countries come into their country visa free. That’s a competitive advantage. Or in the case of Saudi Arabia, they’re spending a trillion dollars building destinations.

I remember speaking with a U.S. senator not too long ago, and I mentioned this investment they’re making in Saudi Arabia, and his comment was, yeah, I’m not that interested in going to Saudi Arabia, though. And my response was, I think you’re missing the point. You’re not the target customer. The target customer is that wealthy Asian traveler, that wealthy traveler from somewhere else.

Saudi Arabia is trying to convince them to go there and not come here. So I think one of the challenges is just the investments, the competitive nature that others recognize that we’re in.

My biggest frustration in the United States is the inertia. It’s this sense of having to wake people up to the value of this industry. Now, if you live in the Caribbean or you live in Hawai‘i, you know where your bread is buttered. You get the power of travel. In mainland United States, we tend to look at everything first and foremost through a manufacturing lens. That’s good. Those are good jobs. That’s good spending. That’s good, this good that. We don’t look at the service culture as much. But I think when you look at where this country is going, where a lot of the growth is, service, hospitality, there is enormous upside here, but we’ve gotta change our cultural thinking if we’re gonna maximize that.

Michelle: And that leads me perfectly into my sort of last question and that’s what’s your hope for the U.S. travel industry for 10 years from now?

Geoff: Yeah, you know, I mentioned we’ve got this mega decade of events beginning here now with the World Cup, America 250, the Olympics, going to the Winter Olympics in 2034 in Salt Lake City.

My hope is we take advantage of these things. We recognize that we’ve created just new attractions that Americans want to go to, the world wants to come to, and that we take advantage of that. Now, what’s it going take for us to take advantage of it? It’s going take a new outlook, and we’ve got work to do as an industry to figure out, how do we wake people up to the value in really investing in travel? Ten years ago, the United States had a $50 billion travel trade surplus. Foreign travelers were spending $50 billion more in the United States than Americans were spending abroad 10 years later. Today, we have a $50 billion travel trade deficit. There’s been a $100 billion swing.

Michelle: Wow.

Geoff: My hope 10 years from now is that pendulum has swung back in the other direction, and it’s done so not by chance, but with a degree of intentionality, with a focus to really make our travel economy a heck of a lot stronger than it’s ever been before.

The last thing I’ll leave you with is, I hope 10 years from now we haven’t gone back into that rut of wanting to buy TVs and toasters. That we’re still there, people still get that value, we have cemented travel as a need in this country. That will be success.

Michelle: Absolutely. Thanks so much for joining us, Geoff.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of View From Afar. In the show notes, you’ll find links to the topics we covered as well as how to follow U.S. travel’s ongoing advocacy efforts.

You can find more View From Afar on afar.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We’re @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great interviews. Subscribing always makes that easy. And be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find it.

This has been View From Afar, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland, with assistance from Michelle Baran and Billie Cohen. Music composition from Epidemic Sound. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to their other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers Podcast.