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IPW 2028 Heads to Detroit

U.S. Travel selects Motor City for major event

By Kathy Gibbons

IPW 2028 will be based at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit. || Courtesy of Huntington Place

Detroit has landed U.S. Travel’s IPW 2028 event. IPW 2028 will be staged at Huntington Place convention center with activities at other sites around the city June 10-14, 2028. Lodging for the more than 5,000 travel professionals representing more than 60 countries who are expected to attend will be concentrated around downtown Detroit, though overflow is likely in surrounding communities. In addition, organizers predict more than 90,000 pre-scheduled business appointments connecting 1,600 global travel buyers will take place as part of IPW 2028.

Visit Detroit and other economic and tourism leaders have been trying to attract IPW, described as the leading international inbound travel trade show and largest generator of travel to the U.S., for a long time.

IPW 2022 was held in Orlando, Florida. || Photo by Kyle Espeleta

“Typically this event rotates among destinations like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando, New Orleans, New York,” says Christopher Moyer, Visit Detroit senior director of communications. “U.S. Travel selecting Detroit is one of the biggest indicators of how the perception is changing about southeast Michigan and how people are starting to recognize how critical it is to visit here, to hold meetings here, to come as a tourist or as a meeting planner, because there is something very special happening.”

Representatives of U.S. Travel recently brought their Travel Works for America roadshow to the Motor City, convening with federal, state, local, and travel leaders and visiting various local attractions. Moyer says that event probably contributed to the decision to bring IPW 2028 to Detroit.

“It really helped having the CEO and senior leaders from U.S. Travel here,” he says, “but it’s also all the things that people can do and experience. It’s our music, it’s our great food, it is the history and the current innovation that is coming out of southeast Michigan—it’s really capturing the imagination. Detroit’s not just coming back. We’re fully back.”

More than 5,000 travel professionals representing more than 60 countries are expected to attend IPW 2028 in Detroit. || Photo by Vanessa Velazquez

U.S. Travel Executive Vice President of Business Strategy and Industry Engagement Ellen Davis says Detroit is going to be “an exciting new destination for IPW attendees.” Factors that played into the selection of Detroit to host IPW 28 include Huntington Place being the right size to meet needs for exhibits, activation spaces, and meal functions; a hotel package that is attractive and convenient to the city center; Detroit Metro Airport’s multiple carriers and connections within the U.S. and abroad; and diverse local attractions like the Detroit Riverfront, downtown itself, The Henry Ford museum in nearby Dearborn among them, Davis explains. She also credited Visit Detroit and Travel Michigan Vice President Dave Lorenz for helping tip the scales.

Officials expect the IPW 2028 payoff to be significant. “Past IPWs have each generated about $5.5 billion in future travel to the United States,” Davis says. “The host city/region can expect about 10% of that total, so approximately $550 million in new visitor spending is projected for the metro Detroit region in the immediate years after hosting IPW.”

At least 500 travel media representatives will also be on hand at IPW 2028, reporting from and about Michigan. “The whole state is going to benefit from this,” Moyer says. “IPW is famous for people coming in the week before or staying the week after to go other places, and international travel professionals are using this as their jumping off point. So destinations around the state of Michigan are going to benefit.”

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