The Industry Women Built. The Microphone Men Keep Getting.

I found out about Nick Adams four days ago.

I've been so angry I couldn't write.

That's how I knew I had to. Let's see if I can channel my rage into something useful.

For the uninitiated: Nick Adams is America's new Special Presidential Envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism and Values.

Yes, that's a real title.

Yes, I'll wait while you process that.

He's best known for posting about eating rare steaks, visiting Hooters, and the time two women at the gym spontaneously stopped to count his reps out loud while a crowd gathered to cheer.

And now he speaks for American tourism.

I'm fine. Everything is fine.

But let me tell you what's actually not fine.

Because this isn't just about Nick Adams. Nick Adams is a symptom.

This is about what his appointment is built on top of.

Let me tell you a story I've never told publicly. Partly because it still makes me furious. Partly because I wasn't sure anyone would believe me. (and this IS the restrained version)

In the early 2000s, in my late twenties, I was breathing rare air. I was working at an agency on digital strategy with the largest tourism associations in the country, including US Travel. We won the contract with the US Department of Commerce around the same time to build the first funded inbound tourism campaign for America.

I built digital positioning. The research. The strategy.

And when Congress ran out of money before it ever reached the campaign, I did what a lot of women do.

I mean, I wasn't going to miss my opportunity.

So I raised $750,000 from American tourism companies in 22 days.

Selling digital ads.

In 2004.

Before anyone had a name for what that even was.

Let that land for a second.

A woman in her late twenties. Self-created strategy. Three-quarters of a million dollars raised in less than a month on nothing but vision, relationships, and the internet. Longwoods found that 9 million inbound trips were attributed to the 100K in digital spend (the rest I raised went to the print boys at Saatchi, I CANNOT make this up).

And then I did what ambitious people do when they see something bigger. I sat down with senior leadership at US Travel and laid out how this could be a long-term national strategy, not just one campaign. USDOC did not have the budget, so I think I'm building momentum and allies for them. I was not.

I shared everything. Domestic strategy, International competition, AJAX composites for API integration with State DMOs. In good faith. Like an idiot with good intentions and a really big vision.

My agency was furious at me for it.

And the people I shared it with?

They built Brand USA.

I wasn't cut out and ghosted.

Punished for giving too much. Erased for giving it to the wrong room.

That's not a conspiracy theory. That's a Tuesday in this industry if you're a woman.

Even now, 22 years later, I feel the embarrassment and simultaneous second-guessing.

So I did what women do when the room won't work for them.

I stopped waiting for a seat at someone else's table and built my own.

Destination Innovate exists because of that moment. Because I decided that if that thinking was good enough to become a national program, it was good enough to build a company around.

Thirty years later I'm still here. Still thinking too big. Still sharing too much.

Still not apologizing for it.

Now, back to Nick.

Here are some numbers worth sitting with before we go any further.

• The tourism industry is approximately +60% female workforce.

• Women drive the majority of household travel decisions.

• Women make up a significant percentage of DMO leadership across this country.

Women didn't just participate in building American tourism.

Women ARE American tourism.

And before anyone says this is an overreaction to one appointment...

Let me be clear about what the environment actually looks like.

I have personally pulled drunk tourism leaders off young female account managers at industry events.

Not in the 1990s.

Recently.

This is the industry we're talking about. This is the culture that exists right now, today, in the same rooms where strategy gets built and contracts get signed and careers get made or quietly derailed.

Nick Adams didn't create this. But his appointment tells every person in those rooms exactly where the wind is blowing.

And the women who have been navigating it for decades?

We're tired of pretending it's not there.

And the national voice we just got handed?

Lost his previous diplomatic nomination because of Islamophobic remarks. Got pushed out of Australian politics for conduct "likely to embarrass." Became an American citizen in 2021.

He's been here five minutes, and he's already the ambassador of something.

Some of us have been here thirty years, and we're still introducing ourselves.

I'm fine. Everything is fine.

Here's why this is dangerous. Not just embarrassing. Dangerous.

American tourism was becoming something so precious. More human. More diverse. More honest about who travels, who hosts, who builds, who decides.

International travelers, the ones we desperately need, the ones we lost 6% of last year, the ones actively reconsidering America as a destination right now...they were watching that evolution.

And now they're watching this.

We just handed the global perception of American tourism to a man whose nomination triggered protests in the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

That's not a values conversation; that will hit us in the pocketbook.

And the part of the industry that's going to have to clean this up?

Is mostly women.

As per usual.

To every woman in this industry who has sat in a room and watched her idea walk out in someone else's name,

You weren't imagining it.

To every tourism leader who has been quietly building something real while louder voices collected the credit,

I see you.

To the 25-year-old woman just entering this industry right now,

I'm sorry this is still the room you're walking into. And I promise some of us are not going to shut up about it.

To every man in this industry who has passed the mic, shared the credit, and made sure the right person was in the room,

Thank you, we see you too. And we need more of you. Right now.

And to every alpha male with fragile energy who stumbled onto this essay,

We built this industry. We run this industry. We are not cleaning up your mess quietly anymore.

You're welcome for Brand USA, by the way.

I'm Jenn Barbee. Thirty years in travel and tourism. Co-Founder of Destination Innovate. Still thinking too big, still sharing too much, still building tables when the rooms don't work.

If this made you feel something, same. DM and tell me what's happening in your world. The conversation this industry actually needs isn't happening in the official channels.

But I'm all ears. 🖤