View From Afar S2, E2: IPW 2026 | Setting the Stage for IPW: Geoff Freeman on the State of U.S. Travel in 2026

What does the U.S. travel industry look like just weeks before IPW lands in Fort Lauderdale for the first time?

In this episode of View From Afar, deputy editor Michelle Baran sits down with Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, to set the stage for Afar’s “Live From IPW” series. Picking up where their conversation left off at last year’s conference in Chicago, Geoff and Michelle talk about the forces shaping inbound and domestic travel in 2026 and what U.S. Travel is doing to support the industry, even as competition for the global traveler has never been fiercer.

The two discuss the lingering damage from the record-breaking 75-day government shutdown, the perception gap distorting how the world sees the U.S., and the diplomatic work required to win Canadian visitors back.

Geoff also previews what’s new at IPW this year, why a visa “fast pass” piloted for the World Cup could become a model for major events well beyond it, and why travel remains the ultimate form of diplomacy.

Transcript

Michelle Baran: 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. Next week, I’m heading to Fort Lauderdale for IPW, the annual travel conference organized by the U.S Travel Association, to share the best of America with the rest of the world. My colleague Billie Cohen and I will sit down with travel industry leaders and executives to bring you the biggest conference news and insights, and to share what’s on the horizon as the country gears up for the FIFA World Cup and its 250th anniversary. You’ll hear each of those conversations throughout June to set the stage for all of that.

Today, I’m talking with Geoff Freeman. Geoff is the president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, the nonprofit trade group that advocates for the U.S. travel industry and puts on IPW each year. Geoff and I talked at last year’s conference. That episode link is in the show notes. So today we pick up where we left off discussing the impact of global tensions on international visitor numbers, his hopes for the World Cup and the ongoing importance of travel as diplomacy.

Welcome, Geoff. I’m so excited to have you on the podcast with me today. It’s been a year since we last sat down at IPW and a lot has happened. It’s been a busy year. If you had to summarize the last year and say a few sentences, how would you frame it? What surprised you both in terms of positive developments and in terms of some challenges?

Geoff Freeman: Well, first of all, it’s great to be back with you. It’s hard to believe it has been a year. I think it’s certainly been an eventful year. And there are no there is no shortage of surprises. I think two things that stand out to me kind of positive, negative. The positive side is just the resilience of the traveler, particularly domestically, the ability of affluent individuals in particular, to keep the industry growing on the domestic side has been outstanding. We look at the first quarter of this year. We just had the best year in hotel history in terms of six million more room nights year over year, about a three to four percent increase in rev par.

It was an incredible quarter domestically, the resilience of travelers, despite all of the craziness going on around us, even March where we had a government shutdown, we had more people go through TSA in that month than we’ve ever had before. And that means many of them were tolerating two, three, four –hour long lines. So resilience is the word for me. It’s positive. It is a predictor of where the industry will go as we look forward. People desire this product. They want this product. Demand is high. That’s great.

What’s the negative? I guess the folks who had less resilience or frankly, maybe some of whom they were resilient in a different way. The U.S. was the only country in the world last year to see a decline in international visitation. Much of that was due to Canadians where travel dropped more than 20 percent to the United States. They were resilient in their own way and saying, “We’re not going.”

We got some of that as well from Western Europe and Asia and other parts of the world. It’s hard to be in last place, right? It’s hard. You’ve got to do something wrong to earn that distinction. And we did. We did not let travelers around the world know how much we want their business. We didn’t effectively compete for that business. We’ve got a lot of work to do going forward, and I’m confident we will do that work because travel demand is so high. There’s so much opportunity here, but we’ve got our work cut out for us.

Michelle: Yeah. And we’ll dig in a little bit more into some of those numbers in a second. But first, I want to talk about some of the most recent news. And U.S. Travel has been very vocal over the course of the recent government shutdowns. Um, the sort of latest roller coaster we’ve all faced, including the record-breaking 75-day partial shutdown, which finally just came to a close. What has been most frustrating for you to watch as these shutdowns dragged on, and are you hopeful that we won’t go through something like this again?

Geoff: Let’s say the obvious part. All of these shutdowns are a sign of not just dysfunction, but incompetence. There is absolutely no reason these things should happen. They don’t happen at the state level. They happen increasingly at the federal level because people are incapable of getting what they want through traditional channels. The only people that are punished by this are the American consumer voters. Policymakers seem to come out of this doing just fine.

I’ve got a real problem with shutdowns in general. These shutdowns in particular have been disproportionately focused on the travel industry. We saw that around air traffic control during the first shutdown in the fall, and we saw that around TSA here during the spring shutdown. What I think is most disturbing is the willingness of policymakers to use these hard working men and women of air traffic control, of TSA, of other aspects of the government as political pawns, and force them to go to work each and every day without being paid.

There is something borderline criminal around that concept of forcing others to go to work unpaid, while you continue to pay yourself. That I have a real problem with. I mean, we’ve used words like “disgusting,” “unconscionable.” It really does blow us away. The callousness with which policy makers have treated air traffic controllers and TSA. In fact, it is a high priority of ours to figure out how do we carve TSA and air traffic control out of future shutdowns? If we take that kind of political leverage, so to speak, off the table, it really decreases the willingness to even have a shutdown because now you’re going to lose your visuals.

So long as we have those visuals, I think we’ll have more shutdowns. The more effective we can be in carving aviation out, I think we’ll have fewer shutdowns when it comes to 2026. I think we’re fine for now. But when we get close to October one, one month out from the the midterms, I’m worried what could happen. That’s when the budget, the new fiscal year budget is supposed to kick in. I’m worried about this Congress’s ability to find common ground here and do the right thing. So all eyes will be on that date. And until then, we’ll be doing everything we can to carve out the aviation workforce.

Michelle: I’m glad to hear that you’re doing that work. I mean, it’s no surprise that we lost, I think, what, 1,100 TSA workers, you know, who would put up with that on and off again, switch from—

Geoff: I’m sorry to interrupt. Let’s just talk about that more. Yes, we lost more than 1,000. That was as of two weeks ago. I’m sure that number will continue to climb. What person is going to say, “I’d rather go work for TSA where my pay is up in the air? Then this other opportunity over here where pay is a certainty.” The same is true with air traffic control. We were 3,000 air traffic controllers short of where we needed to be before we had a shutdown. What person is going to say “Yes, give me the stress of that job. And while you’re at it, throw on the opportunity to not get paid whenever a dysfunctional Congress is unable to cut a deal.”

I think we run huge risks in both of those areas that good, talented, hardworking people are going to stay away. It’s going to lead to increased delays, longer lines, more inefficiencies. The travel system will pay the price for Washington’s dysfunction.

Michelle: Right. And to your point about this idea, you know, and we’ll get more into, um, international travel and inbound travel, but like timing is not ideal. Like we’re about to host the World Cup and it’s not a good look to be short on to say, you know, you wanted the country to seem like things are moving, people are able to board their flights as needed. So, um, yeah, it’s just one more, you know, one more hurdle in terms of that idea of like perception.

So let’s dig a little bit into some of the numbers. You talked about the World Travel and Tourism Council recently reported that the U.S. remains the world’s largest travel and tourism market. So that’s good. Um, travel and tourism contributed $2.6 trillion to our GDP and supported 24.4 million jobs. But international visitor numbers to the U.S. actually fell by 5.5 percent. So there’s an interesting split screen there. And you talked about resilience. And obviously there is some resilience in that spending. What does it tell us about where the US is competing versus losing ground?

Geoff: Yeah. You know, the best thing to know is that travel demand is high and, right, if there was any good thing that came out of the pandemic, it’s the prioritization that people put on experiences and creating memories. That demand has remained resilient. That’s the good news. What we also know is competition is at an all time high, as we continue to allow perceptions to form, that travelers aren’t as welcome as they once were. As we allow long visa wait times to continue to fester, as we consider putting in place a new $250 visa fee, or changing the requirements for visa-free travelers to provide social media information, we’re putting in place obstacles that our competitors are not. And what we’re seeing is travelers are voting with their wallet, they’re voting with their feet, and they are running to some of these other destinations, Canada in particular.

You saw travel boom to the Caribbean. You saw their travel boom to Mexico. You saw their domestic travel, their intra Canada travel grow quite considerably while their travel to the United States declined. We’ve seen China in particular, cut new policies for Western European travelers and others to get into their market more efficiently. You know, this $250 fee we’re considering on the visa side, which obviously makes us not just uncompetitive. It makes us the second most expensive country in the world to get into, next to Bhutan.

And when you look at visa wait times, there’s no country close to us in the delays that we have. So the demand is there, which is fantastic. But the competitive nature of these other markets is such that we just can’t rest on our laurels. And unfortunately, in this environment, we have too many that are willing to rest on the laurels, unwilling to address some of the key obstacles.

Now, what I need to say and be clear about the administration has taken some very good steps, particularly around the World Cup, which you mentioned, they have put in place some new policies to streamline the visa process. They have reduced visa wait times, and I give them credit for those things. At the same time, we’ve reduced visa wait times to a level that we’re still last in the world in terms of visa wait times. So it’s improvement, but it’s not solving the problems. And that’s what’s keeping me and our teams busy every single day. If we’re going to capitalize on the travel demand that’s out there, we’ve got to be willing to one, acknowledge and two, fix the problems that we have.

Michelle: Right. And it’s interesting because on the one side, there’s the logistics and it sounds like you you do see some progress being made on logistics like visa wait times and that sort of thing. But then there’s also perception. And in an opinion piece for Afar last November, you wrote that perception matters. It’s this idea that obviously negative headlines about the U.S. were discouraging international visitors. But when people come, when they do visit, they overwhelmingly have only positive things to say, which is obviously, you know, something that we should all be proud of. So how would you describe international perception? You know, four months into 2026, and what’s your projection for inbound travelers for the remainder of the year?

Geoff: I went to ITB in Berlin in March and was frankly blown away by the number of people who asked me about policies that have not been implemented. They were convinced that we’ve changed our entry policies so that you have to provide access to your social media information, so that you have to provide contact information for extended family. Neither of those things have been implemented. Those things have been proposed, and we’re doing everything we can to prevent them from being implemented. But the folks I met with in Germany were convinced that they were implemented. Similarly, folks that I’ve met with from Latin America were trying to convince me that the $250 visa fee was already in effect. They were so effective, I started to ask myself, “Am I wrong?”

Michelle: Right.

Geoff: We know the policy has not been implemented, but they’re convinced of this. So this gets to the perception issue. Another example is so many people are convinced that they’re going to be detained at customs. They’re going to have their devices searched. We know that the percentage of people that are getting their devices searched is a difference of 0.01 percent between the Biden administration and the Trump administration. It’s infinitesimally small, but travelers are convinced of these things. And that perception is, I think, particularly leading first time travelers to avoid the United States.

We’re getting the travelers who have been here before. They know what the country is all about. They know what their lived experience is, and they come back. But I think the younger traveler, the first-time traveler, is the one who isn’t coming. And the risk with that is they go and build an affinity for another market. They never come to the United States. And we’re not just losing them this year. We may be losing them for the next 20 years.

That’s the concern because, as you said, even though we welcomed eleven million fewer visitors last year than we did in 2019, we still welcome 68 million international travelers. That is an enormous number. And those 68 million almost entirely had positive, safe, enjoyable experiences that they’re going home and telling their friends and family about. That word of mouth is critical to attracting additional visitors in the future, to countering some of the misinformed coverage that’s out there. But if you lose those first-time travelers, if you lose that younger generation, then we’re just we’re digging a hole that we don’t even realize we’re digging. And it’s one that we’re going to pay the price for, for years to come.

Michelle: And speaking of digging holes, we got to talk about our neighbors to the north. We have to talk about Canada because truth be told, the biggest contributor to our inbound decline is from Canada. If you removed Canada from the picture, it would be quite a different story. So what is it going to take to lure our neighbors to the north, back over, you know, over the next 12 to 24 months? What’s it going to take to get Canadians to to come back?

Geoff: Yeah, let’s just be honest about it. Canadians are pissed off and they feel like their sovereignty has been questioned. Uh, they’re responding to their former prime minister who discouraged them from going to the United States. They’re angry. And I think what it’s going to take for them to get over that anger is, one, time, but, two, signs of respect. Respect from the United States for our neighbor to the north, letting them know that we respect who they are, what they do, their sovereignty, and so on. And until we can show that respect, I think we will struggle to get the numbers back to where we want them to be.

Now individual destinations are doing that. I’ve seen Visit California and Las Vegas and other entities up in Canada sending that message, but the industry can only do so much. We have to have a partner in government that is also sending that message. I don’t know when government will be willing to do that, but until we have kind of that public, private, united voice that we want you to come to the United States, we respect who you are and what you do.

I think the numbers from from Canada will be down now. Are they going to be as down as far as we were year over year? Hopefully not. But if we want to maximize that market, if we want to fully take advantage of Canadian interest in the United States, it’s going to take a radically different approach than we’ve taken over the last 15 to 18 months. We need government as a partner, but the private sector should be making sure that we’re extending that olive branch, that our voice is voices being heard, that the Canadians understand that our point of view when they’re ready to travel. We’re here to welcome them.

So I would encourage every destination. I know many kind of pulled back on the marketing. They thought the time wasn’t right, and I appreciate that the time probably isn’t right to maximize the visitation opportunity, but I think the time is right to send a message that “When you’re ready, we’re here to welcome you.”

Michelle: Right? To me, it always comes back to that sentiment you had about this idea of like, when people do come, that positive reception and experience that they have on the ground and that sort of that just interpersonal relationships like those never went away, you know, the people on the ground. So if we can get past some of the policy hurdles or things, you know, hurt feelings that happened, whether it’s a government level or whatever it might be, it just feels like there’s always that opportunity to, to reconnect on, on a personal level. And hopefully we’ll, we’ll see our friends back here in the US soon enough.

But on the domestic level, spending is up slightly year over year to $1.54 trillion and well above pre-pandemic levels. What’s your prediction for 2026 in terms of domestic travel and spending? Because this definitely feels like a bright light, at least for the travel and tourism industry.

Geoff: Well, first of all, I think if any of us have learned anything over the last 15 to 18 months, it’s don’t make predictions.

Michelle: Fair, fair.

Geoff: There’s just so much that is unpredictable that is outside our control. Who would have predicted two and a half government shutdowns in a matter of three to four months? The level of dysfunction from Washington, some of the rhetoric that’s coming out of Washington, you just can’t predict those things. Now, that said, we see domestic travel spending increasing this year modestly up a point or so. So we do see continued growth there.

We know the traveler is resilient as we started this interview. We know, though, that there are some underlying issues, right? Especially with the war in Iran, fuel costs going up. That means not just gas, but but air travel increases. That’s going to put pressure on the industry. We know that the continued I think, economic concerns, the uncertainty that’s out there has, particularly people who are more budget conscious. We know that has them keeping a tighter grip on their wallet. So there are these underlying issues that are there, and any of them can be awoken on a moment’s notice. I think we’re we’re trending in the right direction. But if we think it’s going to be smooth sailing through the rest of this year, we’re probably a bit crazy on our end.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I want to talk a little bit about IPW. It’s coming up. What are some of the highlights of this year’s IPW. And what are you hoping will be the big takeaways for attendees this year?

Geoff: We’re extremely excited about it. We’re excited to be in a first time host city in Fort Lauderdale. We’re excited to welcome more than 1,500 buyers and media at a time when others feel like there’s great uncertainty. The market is speaking. They’re interested in the United States. They want to be here. They want to book travel, not necessarily for this summer, but for three, four or five years from now. That’s why they’re coming.

Excited to see many of our suppliers lean into IPW in new ways. Folks will see that in terms of new sponsorships and new activations that are taking place. So all of those things feel really good.

What I’m most excited about is we’re making some changes to IPW for those that have been going for years, the huge cavernous lunches that we’ve done are going away, and we’re moving to some other ways of feeding the group, of using people’s time in different ways. I’m excited about that. We’re adding different styles of evening functions. We’re adding new briefings. We’re doing a briefing of 1,000 buyers on what’s really going on with U.S. travel policy. We’ve never done anything like that before, so I’m excited about some of the ways that we’re evolving the show.

I’m certain that some of the things we try won’t work, and that’s okay. We’ll pivot from those things. But I always want to be at an organization that’s willing to try new things that recognizes you’re either moving forward or going backwards. There’s no standing still. So how are we going forward having the courage to do that? I’m excited about that. I think people will feel some of those changes. I think Fort Lauderdale is going to do a great job hosting us. They’ve got big shoes to fill because Chicago did a fantastic job this year, but I’m confident they’re going to do a great job and look forward to getting down there, uh, here pretty shortly.

Michelle: What sort of a lesson you hope the industry will take away from the World Cup, now that it’s literally around the corner that will ultimately be applied to the Olympics two years down the line?

Geoff: Yeah, we’re only a little over 30 days from the World Cup.

Michelle: It’s crazy. I can’t believe it’s here.

Geoff: It’s very real. Eleven host cities spread out over nearly 45 days. People moving from one destination to the next. Not just to catch games, but to see the various attractions on their way to doing that. We’re extremely excited about the World Cup. One of the things I’m most excited about with it is a policy change that we’ve made, that we’re piloting a new way of processing visas, and I’m excited about how we could use that policy in the future when it works well at the World Cup.

So what we’ve done with the what the Trump administration has done is created a visa fast pass. So for those that have tickets to the World Cup, they go right to the front of the visa line and they get their visas processed nearly instantaneously. We love that policy. We love that policy because it shows that we want to compete for travelers. We’re going to make it more efficient for them to get into the country.

And guess what? If we can do it for the World Cup, we can do it for the Olympics, like you said, but we can also do it for the Consumer Electronics Show. We can do it for the Home Builder show. We can do it for other major events that the United States is hosting day after day after day. This is the type of creative thing we need to do to make the U.S. more attractive, to be more competitive with other countries around the world. So I’m really excited how we take some of the lessons from the World Cup. We apply them not just to the Olympics, but we apply them to the countless types of large-scale events that are being held in the U.S. each and every day.

Michelle: That’s a really good point, just in terms of competitive advantage, too, to of just how do you smooth the process overall? So you recently released a statement in response to the coalition of more than 120 civil society organizations, including ACLU, who are discouraging World Cup travel, given everything that’s going on. And you referred to these campaigns as sabotage rather than advocacy. Walk us through your thinking here and the reaction that you’ve gotten from inside and outside the industry.

Geoff: Yeah, I’ll say a few things about it. One, I completely respect people’s desire to disagree with various policies. I too have policies that I disagree with, so I respect that. I respect the frustration that some people may have, that they’re not able to win some of these policy battles because you have one party controlling the House, the Senate and the white House. I respect why that frustration might be there.

What I have a problem with is when you’re unable to achieve what you want to achieve in the political process, the democratic process. I have a problem with then saying, okay, let’s use bellmen, let’s use waitresses, let’s use other frontline personnel in the travel industry as hostages to get what we want. I have a real problem with that.

Uh, we’re in discouraging travel to the United States for the World Cup under the guise of it’s not safe, even though we just talked about the fact that 68 million people came to the United States last year. And for them, it was safe. Doing that is really affecting the people who are on the front line of this industry, whose livelihoods are dependent on visitors.

Uh, also, you can score political points. I think it’s disingenuous. I think it’s harmful. I think it is one of the worst things we can do. And this isn’t the first time it’s been done. We saw some of these same groups discourage groups from doing meetings and other events in Florida because they disagreed with various policies that the state legislature adopted. Again, I understand and appreciate the desire to change policy. I don’t understand the willingness to do that on the backs of people who can least tolerate the loss of visitation. And if you think this is going to get a change in policy, you’re kidding yourselves. So all you’re doing is harming the people who can least afford to be harmed. And I think as an industry, as an individual, we have a real problem with that.

Michelle: Yeah. And I feel like it comes back to this idea of building bridges. And, you know, it comes up a lot in travel, like travel bans. And are they effective to, you know, to, to communicate policies that you don’t agree with because this exists, you know, throughout the world. And I feel like we had a far always come back to this idea of building bridges of, you know, nobody benefits when you reduce contact between people. You know, you want to have that interconnectivity of the world. And because ultimately that’s what leads to greater understanding. So I think it’s something that’s just sort of generally when we think and talk about travel in any direction, I think we can all kind of agree that we want to encourage that connectivity, and we want to encourage those encounters because we all stand to benefit.

Geoff: I think you said it incredibly well, this idea. We know what happens when people come together, not just bringing Europeans to America, but bringing Californians to Alabama, to getting to know our fellow people, understanding that they’re really not that different from us. We have much more in common than we do that divides us. I couldn’t agree more. We’ve just been through this period of kind of cancel culture. I think many of us are tired of that, because we realize that there’s so much more nuance than this, these blanket bans and boycotts can possibly appreciate. Let’s get into the nuance. And that’s something I think, as you just said, well, travel helps you do it helps expose you to the intricacies. It gives you more appreciation. You’re more. Eyes wide open and aware. Let’s celebrate that aspect of our industry.

Michelle: Exactly. And I mean, you could even argue that that’s the reason we’ve gotten to this polarizing point is because everybody’s just, you know, on their phone and not interacting with others. And it’s so easy to like, demonize other people when you don’t just spend time with them. And so if we got off of our devices and got out into the world and just spent time with each other, I think that we would, you know, not to be not to be overly idealistic, but I do think that, you know, a lot of these what, what we claim to be our so-called differences, I think that we would actually see we have a lot more similarities. So I do think there’s something to be said for just generally encouraging that human to human IRL, as the kids say, interaction. Similarly, you’ve also talked at length about travel as diplomacy, which is this kind of similar theme that we’re talking about. So as you move through this year, how will you be messaging that? Is that part of the larger theme here?

Geoff: Yeah, it’s a big component. I mentioned we’re doing a briefing of the buyers, the 1,000 or more buyers that we have coming to IPW, educating them on what the policies are in the United States or what the policies aren’t, but they’re perhaps perceived to be the value that we place on visitation, the respect that we have for them, their culture, and our desire to see that here in the United States.

You know, going back to the World Cup, that’s one of the best parts about the World Cup. I had the opportunity to go to Brazil in 2014, to see all these cultures coming together and interacting with one another in the craziest of ways, around an event where people are happy and excited. It really is something special, and it’s really what made America what it is today.

So I think what I think, what the buyers and the international media want to hear from us is that we still respect that. We still value that. We appreciate the importance of their culture of different cultures coming together. We know that when people come to the United States, we have survey data to show this. They’re more likely to improve their viewpoint about the U.S. they’re more likely to support U.S. policy in the world. It is the ultimate diplomacy tool, but you can only take advantage of that tool if you make people feel welcome. If you let them know you want their business and you show them the respect they deserve.

Michelle: Yeah. And, you know, an interesting point that you made a year ago when we met at IPW was and you brought it up briefly, this idea of needing to wake people up to the value of the travel and tourism industry in the U.S., in what ways have you worked to achieve that over the last year? And do you feel that more people are recognizing that value, the role that travel and tourism plays in the US economy and for our country.

Geoff: Well, you know, you can look at this through two lenses, and I’m going to use the government shutdowns as an example. On the one hand, if they really respected travel and the value of travel, then they wouldn’t shut down this heartbeat of the American economy. It’d be very easy to conclude that. Why are they bringing this pain upon travel if they respect travel?

On the other hand, you look at through the lens, if they didn’t respect the power of travel, why would they use that as their leverage tool to get what they want politically? They recognize that these long TSA lines that delayed flights can be a way to achieve things politically, because travelers are a potent voting bloc, because you’ve got the images of the travel experience, because everybody connect with what travel is. So as you can look at it through both lenses and I think both can be right. Uh, we, we appreciate that they recognize how important we are. And as such, they’re willing to hold us hostage. Seems like a weird thing to say.

We’ve got a lot of work to do. I think people do recognize that travel is, uh, the, uh, the, obviously the gateway to connection. It is the engine that powers the American economy. But I don’t think policymakers fully appreciate the ways that they both hinder the travel process, as well as the simple things they could do to make these processes more efficient. Now, the best thing that has happened in the years since we spoke, that shows a step in the right direction, is that we were able to secure $12.5 billion to invest in building a modern air traffic control system. That is a massive number. It’s the type of investment we should be making, and it shows that people are waking up to the need to build a first class system. That’s a step in the right direction.

But I worry more days than I don’t about the willingness of policymakers to just think that travel happens, that the system is kind of okay on its own, and kind of blissfully and ignorantly ignore their role in building something that Americans can be proud of. So we’ve made progress. Uh, there’s even some irony in some of that progress that we see. But we’ve got a long way to go to make sure that policymakers show more respect for the industry and more importantly, for the customers, the three million people who are flying daily. More respect towards them is something we’ve got to achieve, right?

Michelle: I mean, they’re, you know, obviously the challenges remain and we deal with it every day. I’m also the news editor out of Juarez and the headlines that come across my desk. I mean, every day there’s something, you know, some curve ball. But, you know, the good news is, is the reasons we travel and what we’ve talked about to seek joy and connections, those have never changed.

And because of all that, we’ve actually rolled out a new series, I think partially for ourselves too, on our Unpacked podcast called “Feel Good Fridays,” where we focus on the good things that travel can do and does. Um, so I, you know, I know you mentioned the investment and the air traffic control system. What are you optimistic about right now? What is there any good news? What’s your feel good Friday that makes you happy?

Geoff: Yeah. We’re probably 45 minutes into this podcast and some people are like, wow, he’s so negative.

Michelle: Uh.

Geoff: That’s, that’s what my wife would say. Uh, I, I look, there are negative things, there are real things that need to be addressed. But I am optimistic. I’m optimistic. And I want to go back to where we started. The traveler is resilient. Demand is high. Uh, the opportunity is there. The desire to see America among international travelers remains high. The desire among Americans to have experiences and build memories, uh, that too is extraordinarily high. So I think we have the underpinnings of something that has an extraordinarily long runway.

I think we have to make sure that we get government out of the way, where it needs to get out of the way, where we make it a partner, where we need its partnership and, uh, and support and that we, we make some strides in limiting the unintended damage that we’ve seen so much of over the last year. I’m optimistic that we will get there. I mean, I’ll give you some examples. I’m optimistic that we’ve bottomed out on international travel.

As I said, we were the only country in the world to see a decline last year, while global travel grew by 10 percent, we were down five percent. I’m optimistic we’ve bottomed out there. I’m optimistic when it comes to domestic travel, that the aviation system is going to get more efficient, that travelers are going to see fewer delays and cancellations. I’m optimistic, albeit painfully, that we’ve realized holding the aviation system hostage, uh, is a fool’s errand and something we should avoid in the future. So I’m optimistic about all of those things at the same time.

I would be naive if I didn’t acknowledge that this is one of the craziest political environments that any of us have ever lived through. We’re going to continue to have curve balls thrown our way, and we’re going to have to be pretty nimble in terms of how we how we respond to that. I’m optimistic our team and industry will do just that. So as I look forward and, you know, we had Chris Nassetta of Hilton as our chairman for two years.

Chris is wildly widely known as one of the most optimistic people across the industry, and he’s certainly instilled that in us. Travel is something that is only going up, you know, up to that upper quadrant, that upper right quadrant. The desire for it is there increasingly the money for it is there, the opportunities are there. So I feel pretty good about what’s ahead for the industry, with a few bumps in the road along that.

Michelle: We haven’t even gone to IPW yet. We’re getting ready to go, and I’m already thinking about a year from now because so many of the same things that we talked about last year are still in place. We were geared last year, we were gearing up for the World Cup and gearing up for America 250. Now those things are here along with all the other challenges. So I’m thinking about a year from now and I’m wondering, wouldn’t it be great if it was just boring next year? Wouldn’t it be great if we, you know, we’ve got America 250 behind us. World Cup’s behind us now. We’re just chilling. Um, you know, is that is it gonna happen? Are we gonna have a boring year next year or. Probably not.

Geoff: I’ve, I’ve said to people that, um, 2025 was pretty crazy. I expect 2026 to be crazier than 2025. And I think we’re the crazy ones if we expect things to get more sane in 2028, 2027 or 2028. This is just the environment that we’re in. That said, even in a crazy environment, you can find success in a year from now as we’re on the doorstep of going to New Orleans and excited to get back to New Orleans for IPW. I think signs of success will be a turn in international travel. That’s certainly one.

I think no more government shutdowns between now and then. Jeez, that’s a pretty low bar for success. But no more government shutdowns would be an example of that. Some progress in carving out the aviation system from future shutdowns would certainly be a sign of success. I think, um, you know, we’ve got some work to do to restore funding for brand USA and get brand USA on the path to reauthorization. Progress on that front would certainly be a sign of success. I mentioned before the piloting of this visa FastPass around the World Cup. The willingness of government to take that and apply it to other programs would certainly be a sign of success.

So I think we’ve got a lot of metrics we can look at to see if we’re heading in the right direction. And if I were if I were using cash or polymarket right now, I would place that bet that we’re going to see more of those signs of success when we get together a year from now.

Michelle: Yeah. And, you know, for whatever the predictions around the World Cup and about the attendance and hotel bookings being soft and, you know, at the end of the day, the proof will bear itself out. Like, you know, we’ve seen this before with other international sporting events. And if things go off without a hitch, the destinations will be spotlighted. There also is a lot of opportunity there for us to just showcase again what is what is great about America, what is great about these eleven host cities here. So no matter what, by the end of the summer, I think it’ll be a proud moment for all of us to see ourselves on the world stage.

Geoff: The World Cup is going to be a success, right? The stadiums are going to be full. There’s going to be great energy in each of these eleven host cities. It’s one of these things where we’re measuring degree of success. Could it have been bigger with different approaches? Right. That’s where it gets tricky. And I think, you know, rather than spending a lot of time figuring out what did we maximize the opportunity? I want to make sure we’re pivoting to the Olympics in 2028.

And how are we learning lessons from what we did right and what we did wrong around the World Cup and applying that we’ve got the Olympics coming. It’s in Los Angeles, it’s in Oklahoma City. Who knew that? It was also in Oklahoma City? Probably not all your listeners. Uh, but we’ve got two destinations right there, an opportunity to bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to the United States. How do we make sure we just apply the lessons from the World Cup? We look forward. We continue to get better. We’ve got the Winter Olympics coming up. After that, we may have another World Cup, a Women’s World Cup in the U.S. as early as 2031. Let’s just make sure we take down these lessons. We learn from these experiences, and we apply these to future events to only get better.

Michelle: Yeah, I can’t wait. I’m excited. I’m excited. I want to get some World Cup tickets and go to some soccer games. All right. Geoff. Well, this has, as always, been absolutely wonderful. It’s so great to catch up with you. We should make a habit of doing it more than just once a year, but I’m really glad that IPW does give us a chance to catch up and talk all things US travel. So thank you so much for joining me on this podcast.

Geoff: Michelle. I had a great time. Thank you.

Michelle: Thanks so much for joining this episode of View From Afar. In the show notes, I’ve shared links to Geoff’s op-ed for Afar. His episode from last year, and the USTA’s website. To get the latest from the conference, join us starting May 20, when we’ll start rolling out our Live From IPW episodes featuring destinations from Seattle to Puerto Rico.

You can find more Views From Afar on Afar.com, and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We’re at @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 Billie Cohen and me, Michelle Baran, 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.