IITA Is Ready for Destination Capitol Hill

by Steve Richer, DC Correspondent

An IITA delegation led by Chair Lena Ross, Advocacy Chair Peter van Berkel, and Executive Director Lisa Simon will be in Washington March 31 to April 3 to bring our message on the state of international inbound travel to Congress, the Trump Administration, and industry partners.

Destination Capitol Hill, organized by U.S. Travel for which IITA is a long-time co-sponsor, is the annual gathering of the industry to communicate the state of tourism to national policymakers by visiting with Senators, Representatives, and industry partners.

IITA takes a slightly different approach.  Since the state tourism delegations focus on meeting with the members of Congress who represent them, IITA prioritizes sessions with chairs and ranking members of the relevant committees and subcommittees dealing with our issues, as well as the committee staff members who do the preparation work for those committees and subcommittees.

At a time with severe budget cuts to both national parks and other federal lands, changing circumstances for visa processing and entry to the United States, and staff reductions in federal departments that handle tourism matters, Destination Capitol Hill 2025 will be extremely important.

IITA has already scheduled meetings with Congressional leaders and committee staff in both the Senate and House dealing with national parks, visa and entry issues, and general tourism promotion activities.

Additionally, face to face meetings with key personnel in the Interior, State, and Commerce Departments are on the schedule, as well as topical meetings with key strategic partners, such as the National Parks Conservation Association.

IITA comes prepared to these meetings with points of discussion, any "asks" in policy and administrative modifications, and "leave behind" information for those with whom IITA meets. In this context, the recent request you have received for information on international inbound cancellations and changes in the amount and content of bookings needs to be completed and submitted promptly. Our delegation leaves for Washington in just slightly more than a week.

It is obvious that there is a lot of anecdotal information about what is happening in the marketplace. It is important that IITA present facts and not just anecdotal comments to the people with whom we are meeting.

Please help make this possible by returning the latest questionnaire sent to operator members.

Stay tuned for a full report on the results of IITA's visit to Capitol Hill in our next report.