Roger Dow has never enable a crisis deter him.
The outgoing CEO of the U.S. Travel Affiliation took the post in 2005 when the journey field had not nonetheless entirely recovered from the fallout of the 9/11 attacks, and a “Fortress America” mind-set at the Office of Homeland Security was suppressing inbound vacation.
His tenure over the future 17 decades included coordinating industry response to the Wonderful Recession, Zika and Ebola outbreaks, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and, finally, the Covid-19 pandemic.
And during his time at the helm of U.S. Vacation, he served steer the business to document-environment inbound visitation for 10 consecutive years, from 2009 to 2019.
Dow “leaves a extraordinary legacy,” reported NYC & Firm CEO Fred Dixon. Throughout the pandemic, he added, “Roger’s steadfast leadership has been second to none.”
Dow may be stepping down from his write-up, but he isn’t really stepping absent from confronting travel market crises. Rather, he is heading into the eye of the hottest storm.
“The two large impediments to vacation market expansion are workforce and sustainability issues,” Dow reported, revealing that his up coming enterprise, Upcoming Work Remedies, will intention to address the nation’s hospitality workforce crunch, and with Forbes he will make sustainability conditions for motels. “I see a good deal of strain coming down the road from organizations and companies stating we will only ebook in hotels or sites that have a sustainability verification.”
Dow said he assumed about retiring the two when he remaining a occupation with Marriott Intercontinental in 2004 and again in 2010 when he accomplished what was intended to be a five-12 months time period at U.S. Travel. Rather, he heeded a friend’s guidance.
“Monthly bill Marriott is one of my mentors and greatest mates in life,” Dow claimed of the 90-calendar year-outdated government chairman of Marriott Global. “A few or four moments in the earlier calendar year, I have talked about retiring, and Bill Marriott mentioned, ‘Never retire.’ He explained, ‘All my good friends that I see that retire, fifty percent get ill, and they die. Even if you want to be a greeter at Walmart, do some thing to get out of bed in the morning.’ So I discovered something to get out of bed for in the early morning.”