America the Awkward

Last week I stood in a ballroom in the Pocono Mountains and read mildly aggressive poetry at a room full of tourism professionals.

They clapped. Twice. Before I even told them who I was.

The speech was called "We the People (Who Work in Tourism)", part of the America 250 celebration, which marks 250 years of this country being exactly as complicated and extraordinary as it is right now.

My job was to thread a needle: honor the American spirit without pretending the American moment isn't difficult. Remind a room full of people who have been personally blamed for the weather that what they do is a civic act.

That needle? We found it.

And I've been thinking about it ever since. Because the same tension I was trying to resolve in that ballroom runs through every tourism conversation happening right now.

America is a lot. America is awkward. And America, the real one, the one built by ordinary people showing up anyway, is still worth showing up for.

Let me explain what I mean.

Numbers.

In 2025, global travel had its best year in recorded history. Eighty million more international travelers got on planes and went somewhere. Records shattered across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The entire world opened its arms and said come see us.

The United States lost 5.5% of its international visitors. We are the only major economy among the 184 countries tracked where international visitor spending declined. The loss comes to roughly $14 billion. Canada pulled back 21%. Germany down 11%. Western Europe posted its first decline since 2021.

And the Academy of Management - 13,500 academics who were supposed to fill Seattle in 2027 - just announced they're leaving the country for five years. Vienna. Toronto. Frankfurt. London. Their members cited visa delays, immigration enforcement concerns, and "the broader political climate." Meaning: they'd rather explain to their international colleagues how to get to Austria than how to not get detained at JFK.

Seattle just lost tens of millions of dollars because of bad vibes.

Meanwhile, the Global Soft Power Index ranked America 124th in the world for being "friendly." Not 24th. 124th. We are losing a perception war we didn't even know we were fighting, and the casualties are real businesses, real hotel rooms, real communities.

Then we cut Brand USA's federal funding by 80%. Slashed it from $100 million to $20 million - signed into law on July 4, which is the kind of irony that doesn't need a punchline. Congress is now scrambling to pass a bipartisan bill to restore it before the World Cup. Which means we broke the thing, then had to hold a bake sale to fix it, while the tourists were already booking Vienna.

That's the world we're operating in.

Now. Before you spiral.

I want to talk about America the way I talked about it in that ballroom.

Because here's what I said to that room in the Poconos, and I meant every word:

America was not built top-down.

It was built by ordinary people who believed that experiencing this country was part of belonging to it. The roads that connected us. The national parks that said this land is worth protecting. The diners on the highway and the motor lodges and the boardwalks and the mountain trails and ... the incredibly obnoxious, deeply endearing World's Biggest Christmas Pickle. All of it built by people who showed up without a monument or a national holiday in their honor and made something worth visiting.

That is not a metaphor. That is the literal history of American tourism.

And it is also, right now, the most important thing I can tell you about the present moment.

America's brand is not the same thing as America's politics.

Those are two different products being sold under the same name, and the confusion is expensive. The world is reading the politics. The people doing the actual work of welcome are building something the politics cannot touch.

The spirit that built this industry is not a government product. It never was.

It lives in the host who turns a small town into somewhere people drive four hours to reach. The festival organizer. The trail builder. The charter fishing captain. The distillery in the cornfield. The visitor services rep who lights up when someone asks about the waterfall because she's been there a hundred times and it still gets her.

Those people did not wait for a policy to tell them America was worth visiting.

They just kept building it anyway.

But I am not here to give you a pep talk that lets everyone off the hook.

Because awkward has a cost. And we need to stop pretending the spirit will absorb the damage indefinitely.

Every 1% drop in international visitor spending costs this country $1.8 billion in export revenue.

We are talking about restaurants, hotels, guides, drivers, shops, and the communities built around all of them. Conventions don't come back the year they leave. Academic associations don't forget five years of alternative venues. Travelers who discover Vienna and Toronto are not automatically pivoting back.

Perception is sticky. Welcome is a habit. And habits, once broken, require intention to rebuild.

Here's the honest read.

America is awkward right now. It's what happens when who you are and how you're being perceived get out of sync, and you have to do the uncomfortable work of closing that gap.

The destinations, the DMOs, the hosts, and the hospitality leaders who understand this moment are not panicking. They are doing exactly what tourism people have always done when the circumstances got complicated: they are controlling what they can control, doubling down on the quality of the welcome, and making sure that every single person who does show up leaves as an evangelist.

This is true, even now: the world has not stopped loving the idea of America.

They've stopped feeling confident they can access it. That is a different problem than the one it looks like. And a different problem has a different solution.

The solution is not to wait for the politics to settle.

The solution is to be so undeniably good at welcome that people decide the trip is worth the uncertainty. To be the waterfall that someone saw on a nine-second video and booked a flight they weren't planning to take. To be the host who looks a nervous international traveler in the eye and says: you made it, let me help.

That's not soft. That's the whole job.

I'm going to keep this conversation going.

On July 1st I'm livestreaming my full "We the People" keynote for the industry. Ticket price is $17.76. Yes, on purpose. Proceeds go directly to our ongoing research and to the Hosts & Home Teams summit, where we'll keep doing the work of connecting the people who make America visitable to the systems that support them.

If you were in the Poconos, come watch it again and bring someone who wasn't.

If you weren't, now you don't have to miss it.

Link in the newsletter footer. See you July 1.

America the Awkward is not a eulogy.

It's a challenge.

The door is still open.

We just need to make sure people know they're allowed to walk through it.

Jenn Barbee is the Co-founder of Destination Innovate and America's Most Independent Voice in Tourism. Click to sign up for "We the People who work in Tourism" keynote