Every day, business events drive economic growth, support job creation, and empower small businesses from coast to coast and around the world. That's why ECA is active on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and in state houses and city halls nationwide, to advocate for public policies that will allow our industry to continue to serve as growth engines for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and communities nationwide.

• Bring back communicable disease coverage to event cancellation insurance *

• Increase music licensing transparency and stop anti-competitive behavior by music rights holders *

• Strengthen support for industry small businesses, including SBA reauthorization and modernization

• Finalize new FTC rule prohibiting business impersonation fraud and increasing enforcement capability

• Establish a pro-growth/innovation federal privacy statute that harmonizes existing state privacy laws

• Restore visa operations to pre-pandemic levels while modernizing the visa processing system *

• Help prevent future international travel restrictions

• Streamline and harmonize travel policies between the U.S. and key international partners and regions

• Strengthen public-sector programs that attract international events to the U.S. (and retain them) and recruit international attendees to U.S. events

• Ensure favorable global standardization efforts

• Prevent anti-growth state and local taxation of our industry

• Block state and local efforts to restrict the continuity and freedom of operations of business events

• Oppose event boycotts and policy-driven operational restrictions

• Promote industry-led sustainability and decarbonization efforts that ensure the industry remains in control of its path to Net Zero *

• Encourage smart decarbonization initiatives by government entities while ensuring the right balance between environmental aims and industry feasibility

• Support government policies to help attract and train the industry’s next generation workforce *

• Amplify efforts to raise awareness of the business events industry to our future talent pool (high school and college programs, internships, school counselor outreach, trade school programs, etc.) *

• Support industry-wide efforts to secure a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics NAICS code for the industry

* Top 2024 ECA priority