What an exciting few weeks in Greater Boston. The 250th events were spectacular. I had the opportunity to attend events at Old North Church and Symphony Hall with Ken Burns. It was an honor to have Ken and his co-producer Sarah Botstein join our Boston Found podcast to discuss the upcoming release of The American Revolution. If you haven’t listened yet please tune in here. There is so much excitement around these commemorative events that Meet Boston is establishing a grant program for organizations who want to create content, programming, reenactments, digital enhancements, and more. Learn more here.
On April 19 I took the early morning ride out to Lexington and Concord for the anniversary of the skirmishes that led to the American Revolution. What an amazing experience. Two days later, I was at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, easily one of my favorite events of the year; it’s so inspiring to see the commitment of the runners against the backdrop of Patriots’ Day.
Amidst the fanfare of these civic commemorations, we remain quite concerned with sentiment abroad and how it may impact visitation to the US. For years we have anticipated that our top international markets – including Canada, Germany, UK and France – would all be excited to experience our semiquincentennial. Unfortunately, the geopolitical situation, coupled with economic headwinds, is presenting challenges. I penned an op-ed in the BBJ to express how devastating this could be for the full recovery of our industry, which is now forecasted to occur in 2029 instead of 2025. This forecast, along with many other economic variables, was presented earlier this month in a webinar by Tourism Economics.
It was wonderful to see so many of you at our 4th Annual Career Fair yesterday at the Hyatt Regency. We had over 50 exhibitors on hand to meet with 500-plus job seekers. We will follow up with a survey to gauge success and track placements.
We are proud to be partnering on a fabulously diverse lineup of spring events, including the Boston Japan Festival which happened last weekend and the Big Queer Food Fest coming up this weekend. Here is a list of events we are partnering with over the next month:
