The Arizona Tourism Board That Fired Its Destination

With the pandemic now over, what’s the future of tourism? What does the decline of full-time office employees mean for tourism and business travel? Why hasn’t U.S. solved its visa delay mess? We’ll discuss these topics with the executives of NYC Tourism+Conventions, U.S. Travel Association, Visit Britain, Intrepid Travel and others on-stage at the Skift Global Forum in New York on September 26-28. 

The U.S. travel industry is cheering on the Biden Administration’s new push to get more federal employees back into the office. 

New Orleans & Company will have a new president and CEO on January 1. Walt Leger III will be replacing Stephen Perry, who has been in the role for 20 years. He wants the destination marketing organization to embrace a more direct-to-consumer strategy and take more risks with emerging technologies.

If the pandemic taught the travel industry anything, it is that change is necessary. For some local tourism officials in the U.S., transformation had been under way well before 2020, but new plans to serve visitors and local communities alike crystallized in the past year.

Multiple state tourism agencies ended their growing participation on the short-form video sharing platform TikTok to comply with their state executive orders. As they exit, they plan to move the resources allocated for TikTok into their other social media channels.

Peru’s post-pandemic recovery will take longer than expected because of the violent political protests that started in December. As the protests continue, the country’s competitiveness as a tourist destination is at risk if the political situation isn’t resolved and images of unrest and chaos stay in the international spotlight.

Both the Middle East and Europe are on track to reach their pre-pandemic levels in 2023 , according to the UN World Tourism Organization. Last year saw a stronger than expected recovery for the global tourism economy.

Rural and outdoor destinations are contending with slower growth rates compared to their pandemic boom as big cities become competitive again and Americans travel internationally. 

American embassies are working around the clock to bring down the amount of time international travelers have to wait to get a visitor visa interview in order to travel to the U.S., according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services Julie Stufft. The global median wait time for a B-1 or B-2 visa, also known as a visitor visa, has been reduced from 17 weeks in June to five weeks now. 

Chicago tourism officials plan to drive visitation into and expand its marketing coverage for South Side and West Side neighborhoods after receiving a $5.5 million grant from the city government.

The great promise and hype by travel executives several years ago about the potential of voice search to revolutionize the industry have gone nowhere. Voice-based search hasn’t progressed as serious destination marketing avenue because the technology underpinning it yet can’t drive effective engagement, inspire travel and handle the complexity of travel search.

It’s been over a year since Russia invaded Ukraine. The war has had ripple effects on the global tourism economy. Ukraine and its tourism sector have suffered immensely in lives, infrastructure and more, but after a year into the conflict, they are seeing some bright spots.