Hotel and travel executives met with President Donald Trump at the White House Wednesday to discuss ways the United States can further attract more international visitors, according to a news release from the U.S. Travel Association. 

Specifically, leaders called on the administration to build on the momentum from a “successful” 2026 FIFA World Cup and “go much bigger,” per a statement from Geoff Freeman, CEO and president of USTA. 

“The World Cup, America250 and a strong summer of travel showed what’s possible when we get travel right,” Freeman said. “The next goal should be 100 million international visitors a year by 2030 — striving to make the United States the most visited country in the world.”

Freeman added that achieving this goal would generate $81 billion in additional spending and more than 400,000 American jobs.

Other meeting attendees included CEOs from Hilton, Marriott, Booking Holdings, MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment, Travel Weekly reported. 

Initial outlooks predicted that hotels in North America would experience a “modest” lift from the World Cup with host markets expected to benefit the most. After the tournament’s end in August, CoStar and Tourism Economics upgraded their hotel performance outlook for the year, driven in part by travel figures from the World Cup and America 250 celebrations. 

The meeting also comes after dampened international travel in 2025 due to escalating geopolitical conflict and broader macroeconomic uncertainty. That trend, complicated further by visa barriers, was cited as a top concern for this year’s World Cup. 

Attracting international visitors will come into the spotlight again when the U.S. hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.