March 26-27, 2026. Cadillac Ranch, Chicago. Two days. No slides. No scripts. Just our community saying the things they'd never put in a LinkedIn post.
Every session started as a sticky note. Someone wrote a topic, people gathered, and a conversation happened. Tap any note to hear what was said.
Kevin Hinton came with numbers and the room listened. Canadian visitation to the US dropped 22% in 2025. A year ago, 53% of international travelers surveyed said they intended to visit the US in the next couple of years. The most recent number is 35%. The global meetings industry grew 8% last year, but the US is taking a smaller share of a bigger pie. Mexico has now overtaken Canada as the number one inbound travel market to the US.
On the policy side: TSA was in its 45th day of not being funded. There's a $250 "visa integrity fee" that passed into law but hasn't been implemented yet. If it goes live, the US becomes the most expensive country to visit after Bhutan. And there's a proposed rule that would require five years of social media history as part of the ESTA application for visa-waiver countries. Hinton's team has been fighting this, using the reciprocity argument: if we do this, other countries will do it to American travelers, and no member of Congress wants that for their constituents.
The FIFA World Cup is creating a useful precedent. The State Department set up an expedited visa process where buying a ticket gets you to the front of the interview line. Hinton's team is working on extending that model to other events through the Great USA Coalition. The question they're trying to answer: what counts as a "special event" for visa purposes? The concern: once the World Cup is over, this administration may not care as much about the Olympics in California.
A specific data point Hinton used at IMEX Frankfurt last year: Lufthansa published the number of passengers they had to send back because they couldn't enter the US, and the numbers were the same in 2025 as in 2024. The perception of being denied entry is much worse than the reality. Secondary screening numbers haven't changed either.
Another data point: 1,500 mathematicians are boycotting their international congress in Philadelphia this July. The French delegation has already said they won't come. These are the real consequences of a perception problem.
Hinton mentioned the Mark Cuban post on BlueSky about what he called the "Milli Vanilli effect": within three years, so much AI video will exist that people won't be able to tell what's real, which will lead to an explosion of face-to-face events and jobs. Hinton is looking for more voices like that. He specifically wants to get Adam Grant talking about the importance of meeting in person. The US Travel Association is releasing a report this month called "Strength Beneath the Surface" about the state of group travel. Northstar and Cvent's quarterly planner poll, released the same week, headlined with "industry is adjusting, not retreating."
One attendee raised a very specific problem: she's running a pharma incentive trip to Grand Cayman where drugs are highly illegal. If a winner is in an accident and tests positive, they go to jail. But she can't tell employees to "get clean" without creating a legal and HR problem for the company. The room didn't have a clean answer.
Someone pointed out that the government's travel website has no images of people, no welcome message, nothing about America's 250th anniversary. Just tiny links for passports and visas. "I would not be enticed at all to want to get to know the US more." The response: that's the government's site. Being hospitable is our job as event organizers.
Multiple tables asked about forecasting tools. Travel budgets are signed a year in advance but fuel costs are swinging wildly. Someone shared that a New York to Nashville flight is $800 right now. "Who absorbs that hit? Because it's impacting everyone across the board."
Searchable by city. Real-time data on interview availability at US consulates worldwide.
Brand USA's new site. Actually welcoming. The alternative to the government's travel page.
Expedited visa interviews for ticket holders. The goal: extend this to other major events.
Secondary screening numbers haven't changed. 99-something percent of visitors have the same experience. Counter the perception with facts.
These kept coming up. Different sessions, different people, but the same ideas kept finding each other across the two days.
