Visa Reforms, Air Traffic Control: Issues the Travel Industry Spent Millions Lobbying For
Photo Credit: Travel companies spent millions lobbying this summer. Wikimedia Commons / DXR
Skift Take
The travel industry spent big this summer as it ramped up its lobbying efforts in Washington amid legislative and regulatory fights.
Immigration enforcement. Tariff tumult. Air traffic control vacancies. A pending government shutdown.
As summer turned to autumn, tourism and travel industries found themselves with plenty of reasons to concern themselves with legislative and regulatory fights rocking the nation’s capital.
What to do? Leading travel trade associations, as well as airline, hotel, and travel service companies, together spent millions of dollars to lobby Congress and the Trump administration during July, August, and September, according to a Skift analysis of federal lobbying disclosure records filed Monday.
Some trade groups and companies notably increased their third-quarter spending compared to the same period last year, when Joe Biden was president. Such lobbying spending, which includes money spent on both in-house and for-hire lobbyists in Washington, D.C., is used to advocate for favorable policies, rules, regulations, and legislation, and also defend industry an
