OVERVIEW

When business meetings and events are cancelled, it’s the hourly-wage workers – not corporate CEOs – who pay the highest price. Meetings, events and performance incentive travel in the United States are responsible for almost 15 percent of all domestic travel. Generating 1 million jobs and $27 billion in wages, meetings and events can provide a solution to our economic woes. Meetings and events support local communities and working families around the country – something we cannot afford to overlook as we rebuild our economy.

U.S. TRAVEL POSITION

U.S. Travel has encouraged policymakers to tone down the dangerous rhetoric leading to the cancellation of meetings and events around the country; to embrace sensible guidelines for companies receiving taxpayer assistance; and to promote travel as an economic solution.  U.S. Travel and partner associations sought to achieve these goals through the launch of the “Meetings Mean Business” campaign in March 2009.  The “Meetings Mean Business” campaign has utilized grassroots mobilization, paid advertising, new media strategies and breakthrough research to help policymakers, the media and the public understand the value of meetings and events and the 1 million jobs they support.  Visit www.meetingsmeanbusiness.com for more information.