'MICE Conversations'. In this episode I talk with Roger Dow, President & CEO, U.S. Travel Association, the Washington, D.C. - based organization representing all segments of travel in America. U.S. Travel’s mission is to increase travel to and within the United States. Prior to joining U.S. Travel in 2005, Dow spent 34 years at Marriott International, rising to senior vice president of global and field sales.

More about Roger Dow and the U.S. Travel Association.
https://www.ustravel.org/profile/roger-dow
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerdow/
https://twitter.com/USTravel

Recorded Friday 9th July 2021.

This pocast is also available as a video, on the TravelMedia.ie YouTube channel.
https://youtu.be/axC7Wd69ByA

Topics and questions, timeline or video chapters.
00:00 - Intro and welcome.
00:39 - Has travel re-opened smoothly in the US?
01:50 - When will the US open up again to travel from Europe?
03:27 - MICE. What is happening in the US right now?
05:06 - What are the protocols for meetings and events taking place in the US?
06:12 - Has the US travel industry changed, post-pandemic?
08:28 - Has anything good come from the pandemic?
10:32 - US travel trends, e.g. bubble tours, rural v urban, sustainable etc?
12:43 - Communications challenge.
14:18 - Experiences v destinations.
15:32 - Vaccine passports.
18:03 - Follow the science.
19:05 - Connectivity.
20:50 - A positive or pessimistic future for travel?
21:56 - Time for positive messaging from media, gov and the industry.
22:07 - Outro and thank you.

About the MICE Meetup Dublin
https://www.travelmedia.ie/mice-meetup-dublin/

Audio transcript:
- So hello and welcome to another session of MICE Conversations. My name is Michael Collins from TravelMedia.ie. And today I am delighted to be joined by Roger Dow, who is President and CEO of U.S. Travel Association. Roger you're very welcome. Thank you for joining us.

- Well, it's always good to be with you, Michael. I'm sad that it's virtual. I much more enjoy having a beer with you in person.

- I agree a hundred percent. Well, hopefully this is a, I think we're getting towards the end of this virtual world and things are opening up very shortly. So it's an opportune time for us to be talking. I wonder, obviously I'm based in Europe and most of our audience here is based in Europe. So I wonder if you might set the scene for us in terms of what's happening in the U.S. at the moment. Obviously it's mid July, 2021, summer season is up and running and I'm intrigued to know how are things going in the U.S. as in, we know travel is happening in the U.S., but I want to know, are there hiccups? Are there delays? Are there issues at airports with queues, et cetera, or is it running very smoothly?

- Actually it is running quite smoothly. The domestic leisure market has come back extremely strong. In fact, we had a holiday weekend a couple of weeks ago, and basically they had the highest number of people that weekend, 10 million, to go through TSA. Since January, 200 million Americans have flown. And the interesting thing is despite all the talk, we cannot find one case where someone has said, "I got on a plane and I got COVID." So it's come back. Now, we're having some worker shortages, which is a problem which hopefully we'll address soon. So TSA has moved through a little more slowly than usual, but we hope to see that up and going very smoothly when we open up into international.

- Well, that's great to hear because one of the concerns here in Europe and in Ireland in particular is the fact that, there is talk of there being delays and the additional paperwork that's required for travel. So it's great to hear that things are moving smoothly in the U.S. Can we move to international travel? Because obviously that is very important..........