Trump to meet with travel industry CEOs as White House touts World Cup tourism boost
In this article IHG President Donald Trump will meet Wednesday with executives from some of the country’s largest airlines, hotel chains and travel companies as the White House looks to build on a summer tourism boost fueled in part by the men's FIFA World Cup.
The meeting will include representatives from American Airlines, Booking Holdings, Caesars Entertainment, Carnival, Hard Rock International, Hilton, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, MGM Resorts International, Raffles & Fairmont and the Venetian, according to a White House official. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, U.S.
Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman, White House FIFA World Cup task force Executive Director Andrew Giuliani and sports and entertainment executive Casey Wasserman, who is chairing the Los Angeles Olympics for 2028, are also expected to attend.
The meeting comes as the travel industry tries to sustain a World Cup-driven spending boost despite weaker international visitation and new barriers for some foreign travelers. It also follows a World Cup that put Trump prominently alongside FIFA President Gianni Infantino, with whom the president has developed an unusually close relationship with Trump leading up to and during the tournament.
Trump joined Infantino on stage after the World Cup final in New Jersey to present the championship trophy to Spain. Infantino is now facing mounting criticism over an aborted plan involving FIFA's commercial rights. “President Trump will meet with members of the U.S.
Travel Association to celebrate the accomplishments that produced a historic summer travel season and delivered a strong boost to our local economies and small businesses,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement. Spending on U.S. travel rose 6.2% from a year earlier in June to $122.1 billion, its strongest monthly reading in a year, according to the U.S.
Travel Association. The group attributed the increase in part to peak summer demand and higher hotel rates in cities hosting World Cup matches. But other indicators paint a more mixed picture of the summer travel economy. Travel prices rose 8.1% from a year earlier in June, outpacing the increase in overall spending, while air passenger volumes declined 1.3%, according to U.S.
Travel. Overseas arrivals fell 1.8% in June and remained 4.3% lower for the year to date. More recent data released Wednesday showed overseas arrivals fell 7% in July from a year earlier and were down 4.7% for the year to date. That outpaced the overall air passenger volume decline of 2.1% in July.
International travel to the U.S. has been a particular challenge for the industry. International arrivals to the U.S. fell 5.5% in 2025, Trump's first year back in the White House, with travel officials pointing to long visa interview waits, tighter immigration policies and concerns among some foreign travelers about entering the country.
The White House is expected to highlight steps it says helped accommodate World Cup visitors and improve the broader travel system, including faster visa processing, additional Customs and Border Protection staffing and changes to airport screening. Ahead of the World Cup, the administration launched FIFA PASS, which allowed ticket holders who needed U.S. visas to obtain priority interview appointments.
The administration has also begun deploying $12.5 billion approved by Congress for a long-anticipated project to modernize the nation’s aging air traffic control system, replacing radar, telecommunications and other equipment at thousands of FAA sites. Trump and the industry executives are also expected to discuss how to sustain travel demand after the World Cup and America’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
That effort comes as the U.S. Travel Association presses Washington to make the U.S. easier and less expensive for international tourists to visit. The group has opposed a new $250 Visa Integrity Fee and expanded social-media screening requirements for some foreign visitors, warning that higher costs and additional entry hurdles could undermine international travel growth.
Trump, earlier this year, also more than tripled the price for international visitors to major U.S. national parks. — Eamon Javers contributed to this report.