Within 24 hours of the start of January’s tragic wildfires, Los Angeles’ hotel and tourism community was feeding, sheltering and fundraising for evacuees and first responders and supporting their industry's workers with a clear message: LA is open for business.
LOS ANGELES ‒ The area’s devastating wildfires were newly contained when Adam Burke, president & CEO, Los Angeles Tourism & Convention (LA Tourism), sat down for this exclusive interview at the ALIS conference on Jan. 29, 2025. Get his first-hand account of how the hotel and tourism community mobilized within hours to provide humanitarian relief to those dealing with “incalculable” loss. Hear about the initiatives and ingenuity that ensured scheduled events went forward and new business flowed in to cover pauses in local/short-haul travel, safeguarding jobs for over 540,000 hotel and tourism workers.
Then, join Burke in looking toward the future. While continuing support programs for evacuees and first responders, LA Tourism is tapping into demand drivers from world-class sporting events to standout culinary experiences and a dynamic arts and culture scene to fast track hotel and tourism businesses from short-term recovery to long-term success.
Investors have taken notice, signaling their belief in LA’s upside with a major new capital infusion to improve existing facilities such as the Crypto.com Arena and creating headline-making event spaces such as the Intuit Dome.
“Los Angeles needs hotel development to support leisure and group tourism growth,” said Burke. “Even in a challenging year like 2025, we can make the numbers work because we can pull so many demand levers. It’s our job to generate business that can help increase hoteliers’ ROI regardless of circumstances.”