Travel Tech Association CEO talks main tourism occasions, resort laws

With main tourism occasions together with the World Cup, the Olympics and the United States’ 250th anniversary on the horizon, journey expertise performs a important function in powering bookings and distribution throughout such a big scale.

“Our member companies connect international travelers and Americans with local communities,” mentioned Laura Chadwick, president and CEO of the Travel Tech Association, which represents on-line journey businesses, journey administration firms and journey tech startups corresponding to Expedia, Tripadvisor and Airbnb. “We are the ones that bring them.”

In addition to latest work “highlighting our [industry’s] role in supporting major tourism events,” the Travel Tech Association has spearheaded instructional efforts on Capitol Hill and advocated for insurance policies it believes will profit the journey business. 

Hotel Dive sat down with Chadwick to speak concerning the commerce affiliation’s priorities for this yr, how the group is adjusting to a brand new administration in Washington and what laws is anticipated to influence resorts this yr. 

This interview has been edited for readability and brevity. 

HOTEL DIVE: What’s modified on the Travel Tech Association because you joined in 2022? 

LAURA CHADWICK: An enormous enterprise was to do a rebrand of the affiliation and actually seize the spirit of journey and innovation in our new look. From there, we targeted on elevating our profile, not solely with policymakers, however with the business as properly. 

When I obtained right here, the group was 23 years previous. It was based within the early aughts, simply because the journey e-commerce business was being birthed. So we actually had solely targeted on the distribution facet of journey. We made the strategic transfer to develop, not solely to cowl distribution. Our founding members had been the unique innovators, and so they proceed to be so, however now we’re bringing within the latest technology of journey tech innovators to carry them into our advocacy work. 

People outdoors the journey expertise business will not be conscious of the business’s complexity and its many gamers. How do you increase consciousness on Capitol Hill? 

We launched a selected marketing campaign to coach policymakers about who international distribution methods are, what they do and why they’re necessary. They are the information and IT spine of the complete airline business, and so they’re necessary not simply to airways, however after all to resorts and all of the completely different journey providers on their platforms. As a part of this marketing campaign, we introduced representatives of our firms as much as Capitol Hill, and we met with a committee staffer who’s labored on aviation points for 10 years — and this staffer had by no means heard about international distribution methods! So we had been like, “We’re glad we came.” 

The actual great thing about a commerce affiliation is that we will do that on behalf of the entire business. It saves firms time, cash and assets to have a company like Travel Tech lead that effort. We can take a step again, broaden the dialog and discuss concerning the bigger implications. From a government-relations standpoint, our foremost job is translation from companies to Capitol Hill. You have to talk each languages. 

What are a few of your prime priorities on Capitol Hill this yr? 

A invoice that we have labored actually carefully with the American Hotel & Lodging Association on is the Hotel Fees Transparency Act of 2025. This invoice was actually near being a part of the persevering with decision invoice on the finish of 2024, however sadly, our provision, which value the federal government nothing, was deleted from that bigger invoice. 

Nonetheless, there’s broad assist for it. It has already handed the U.S. House of Representatives. It handed the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. It awaits Senate motion. I’m optimistic about its passage by the tip of the yr. 

How are you adjusting to a brand new administration this yr? 

We’re at the start of a brand new administration and new Congress. This occurs as soon as each 4 years — you will have to spend so much of effort and time educating new policymakers and administration employees members about who your business is and the way it’s related to the problems of in the present day. So we have been actually targeted on that. 

We know that the Trump administration has taken a unique strategy to AI. The Biden administration was extra taken with placing controls on it. Whereas the Trump administration, I feel rightly so, mentioned, “Let’s see what innovation can happen here.”

We held a Capitol Hill focus briefing on AI within the journey business to coach employees members about what’s taking place. What are the instruments out there proper now? What is the long run? What we do is carry that info to coach congressional employees about these coverage points. 

Travel tech firms are innovating shortly. What future points may you see developing extra within the subsequent few years?

We’re on report concerning the difficulty of main tech platforms’ self-preferencing practices, whereby they place their journey instruments above natural search outcomes. That continues to be a problem, and it will develop into heightened on this new world of one-click search. How will main tech platforms and others use their dominant place, and make the most of AI instruments, to additional weaken competitors amongst completely different service suppliers? We’re actually simply starting to dig into that concept, but it surely dovetails with every thing: information privateness, information safety, AI, regulation, competitors within the market. It’s the fruits of all these subjects. We are actually conserving tabs on that.