February 11, 2026

Here are the most important updates this week:

REGISTER NOW: 2026 Iowa Tourism Conference Details

This is your chance to join industry leaders, network with peers and gain valuable insights into the latest trends and strategies in tourism marketing. Make plans today to enhance your knowledge and grow your connections. Conference break-out sessions will be designed to maximize learning with Intro, Intermediate and Advanced Tracks, and for the first time ever, a Hotel and Lodging Track. So, be sure to tell your hoteliers about this new opportunity. They may end up attending every year.

WHEN: March 12-13, 2026

RATE: Full Conference Registration - $285

Thursday Only Registration -  $185

WHERE: Prairie Meadows

1 Prairie Meadows Drive

Altoona, Iowa

STAY: Prairie Meadows

Rooms start at $134 per night plus taxes and fees. Attendees are encouraged to book their rooms early as the room block is expected to fill quickly.

Spotlight on Conference Session: Travel Reimagined: How Gen Z is Changing the Way We Market

Friday morning's general session: Travel Reimagined: How Gen Z is Changing the Way We Market, will feature a panel of Gen Z Iowa tourism industry peers. Dave Bratton, the Founder and Managing Director of Future Partners, will interview the panel to examine how this generation is reshaping modern travel. Speakers will discuss the trends that drive them and how destinations and brands can adapt marketing to meet their planning and travel preferences and effectively engage them.

A recent Travel Market Report article: "Survey: Gen-Z Travelers Crave Childhood Nostalgia, Still Don't Trust A.I.," states that Gen Z and younger millennial travelers have a strong desire to recreate childhood vacations. It noted that 78% of them had either already recreated a trip from their childhood or plan to. Although the popularity of Chat GPT as a research tool was increasing, the majority were still not using it to book travel. Sixty-seven percent said burnout was a major motivator for travel, 79% said they would consider booking a 'sober' travel experience and 66% said they would consider a hiking activity. Will our Iowa Gen Z panelists agree? Be there to find out.

Main Street Lansing Executive Director Jackie Cooper with Tourism Liaison Lora Friest

Iowa Tourism FY26 Marketing Grant Spotlight

Lansing, Iowa is receiving some help from the Iowa Tourism Office to rise to some unique challenges. The historic Black Hawk Bridge, which has served as a major point of entry for Wisconsin visitors since 1931, was demolished on December 19, 2025, and construction on the new bridge is not expected to be completed until fall of 2027. In 2028, Lansing Main Street is scheduled to be closed and completely rebuilt, further stressing Lansing's tourism economy. Main Street Lansing was recently awarded an FY26 Iowa Tourism Grant to mitigate the economic impact of the bridge replacement and street closure with a comprehensive marketing campaign. The grant will help Main Street and other partners secure media tools and implement tactics to sustain and increase visitor engagement over the next two years and build lasting marketing capacity to prepare for continued success during the 2028 street closure.  

Lansing Main Street Executive Director Jackie Cooper with Iowa Tourism Liaison Lora Friest pose in front of Lansing's Main Street Plaza mural. Main Street Lansing leveraged local contributions to secure funding from a T-Mobile Hometown Grant and the Raptor Resource Project to develop the entire downtown corner as an outdoor plaza/event space.

Shout Out to Lost Island Theme Park

A month of voting by USA Today readers resulted in great news for Iowa! The Fire Runner roller coaster at Lost Island Themepark in Waterloo was selected as the "Best New Theme Park Attraction" as part of a 10Best Series. The Midwest's first single-rail coaster, the Fire Runner has three inversions and goes up to 52 mph, taking riders on a whirl-wind lava themed experience in just 32 seconds. Lost Island not only conceived of and delivered unique and exciting infrastructure, but they also used professional acrobatic drone footage on their website and in their marketing, securing national attention for their attraction, their community and the state of Iowa. Well done! 

Travel Trends Winner: Visit Quad Cities!

We are excited to announce the winner of our 2026 Travel Trends contest: Visit Quad Cities! Their submission featured a visually engaging video highlighting bookstores across the Quad Cities and capturing the heart of their local literary culture. With keyword-rich copy that boosted visibility while staying true to the theme, their thoughtful blend of storytelling, strategy and community-focused content showcases exactly what makes Iowa such an inspiring place to visit. Get inspired by the winning post "Bookstores you need to visit in the Quad Cities"!

Hit the Brakes! Roadside Attractions Are Trending

Road trips are having a moment, and so are the wonderfully weird, interesting, exciting stops along the way. From giant sculptures, retro gas stations, mom-and-pop shops and quirky museums, travelers are rediscovering the joy of pulling over for something unexpected. Look for your attractions in Travel Iowa's recent social post about our roadside attractions. Do you have a roadside attraction in your area that's becoming the must-see highlight of road-tripping? Share it to encourage excitement during travel planning-and drop your photos in Travel Iowa's photo collector (Crowdriff) to get it featured. 

2026 Social Media Benchmarking

Socialinsider recently published the "2026 Social Media Benchmarks report," which looks at average performance stats based on 70 million total posts across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X. This report explores engagement, likes and comments across platforms, providing context around what you can expect on each social platform based on the latest trends, plus strategic tactics you can take to achieve your social media goals! 

Last Call for First Impressions Program 2026 Applications

Offered through a partnership between Iowa State University Extension and Iowa Economic Development Authority/Iowa Tourism Office, First Impressions is a comprehensive community assessment conducted by a team of unannounced visitors to your community. The program helps communities learn about their strengths and weaknesses through the eyes of first-time visitors. It provides specific short and long-term action steps for creating places where people want to visit and live.

Five communities with a population of 20,000 or under are eligible to be selected for the program in 2026. This is the last call for applications due on February 18, 2026.

ABC's Good Morning America Features Iowa

ABC News contacted the Iowa Economic Development Authority to develop a good Morning America segment that would highlight Iowa as part of their series "50 States in 50 Weeks, America the Beautiful". The series, which began in July of 2025, was designed to feature all 50 states leading up to the nation's 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026. Individual states were to be featured in the order they joined the United States. As the 29th state to be admitted to the Union in December of 1846, Iowa was ultimately selected for a January episode. Fortunately, communities across Iowa have wonderful winter events and activities in January. After exploring several options proposed by the Iowa Tourism Office team, GMA developed two segments. The first segment was a summary of some of Iowa's best attractions, Iowa in 90 Seconds. The second, offered a more focused look at Iowa's Winter Games and the Iowa Raptor Project. To date, in addition to the television series that reaches millions, thousands of people have viewed the YouTube videos.

New International Travel Website

For the past few years, the Iowa Tourism Office has worked on several tactics to grow the number of international visitors to Iowa, from attending trade shows like IPW and the IITA Summit to offering the free Steps to Success educational program to partners. Much of the work at this stage is focused on sharing information about unique Iowa experiences for international visitors, building relationships and working toward products being sold through international travel trade.

A key next step in our international strategy was building a website featuring relevant information for international travel trade, and we're pleased to share our new international website: Travel Iowa | International & Group Tours. This website will be a key part of all follow up and communication with travel trade, be shared at all trade shows we attend and be continually enhanced as we build our footprint in this valuable travel industry segment.

IITA Summit

This week, Iowa Tourism Office Tourism Liaison, Stephanie Neppl, is attending the International Inbound Travel Association Summit in Niagara Falls. While there, she's meeting with dozens of representatives from international trade companies to share information about Iowa's unique experiences for international visitors and building relationships with operators who work on a range of key international markets. 

Iowa Tourism Conference Hotel and Lodging Track

The message we have heard at trade shows from operators has consistently been that hotels come first in international marketing. To address how Iowa's hotel properties can be sold internationally, Ryan Thomas, the Product Manager for Hawaii, Mexico, Caribbean & The Midwest at AlliedNewWorld, will be one of the breakout session speakers. Ryan's session will include insights on the opportunities and process for hotels to get started working with companies like his. Although it is part of the Hotel and Lodging track at the conference, the session will also be relevant for DMO partners. Ryan, a Midwesterner, has more than a decade's experience contracting for the European market and is sure to lead a dynamic session.

Learning to Leverage Grant Funding

Tip: The best grant writers learn how to leverage grant funds by using them as "match" to secure another grant. Although you cannot typically use state funding as match for another state grant, there are some exceptions. You can almost always use state funding to match local or federal funding. For example, the Iowa Tourism Marketing Grant awardees can use this state funding as the match needed for a federal, local or private funder who is also interested in providing funding for technical assistance, marketing, business assistance or community development. 

Featured Grants:

T-Mobile Hometown Grant is open for Main Street Communities to help fund projects that foster local connections, like technology upgrades, outdoor spaces, the arts and community centers.

USDA Rural Development has several grants available that could be leveraged with local and state funds including their Rural Business Development Grant. RBDG fund are for rural communities of less than 50,000 residents to promote economic development and job creation. USDA Rural Development personnel advise that the application is expected to open very soon but will only be open for 30 days.

Visit traveliowa.com/industry-partners for more information

Iowa Tourism Office  
1963 Bell Avenue, Ste 200 | Des Moines, IA 50315 US