American Music Tourism Act of 2025
The American Music Tourism Act of 2025 proposes targeted amendments to the Visit America Act to explicitly promote music-focused travel. It directs the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Travel and Tourism to identify U.S. locations and events important to music tourism and to promote both domestic travel to those sites and international travel to them. The bill also expands the international travel facilitation mission to highlight music-tourism destinations alongside other culturally or ecologically significant sites, and it adds a formal definition of “music tourism.” In addition, the act requires a regular reporting cadence to Congress detailing goals, activities, achievements, and vulnerabilities related to these music-tourism objectives. The overall aim is to boost awareness, visitation, and economic activity around music-related attractions, venues, studios, and events. In short, if enacted, the bill would formalize a music-tourism focus within federal tourism programs, expand both domestic and international marketing emphasis on music-related sites and events, and create periodic accountability reports to Congress on progress and challenges.
Key Points
- 1Adds a new domestic duty for the Assistant Secretary: identify U.S. locations and events important to music tourism and promote domestic travel to those sites and events.
- 2Expands international travel facilitation to include music-tourism destinations: promote international travel to U.S. music locations and events, alongside other cultural or heritage destinations and activities.
- 3Reforms and refines the scope of international travel activities: emphasizes rural and culturally rich destinations and other uniquely American locales for hosting international meetings, conferences, and exhibitions, while also linking to music tourism.
- 4Introduces a formal definition of “music tourism”: travel to a state or locality to visit music-related attractions or to attend music festivals, concerts, or other live music events.
- 5Adds a new reporting requirement: within one year of enactment and every two years thereafter, the Assistant Secretary must report to specified Congressional committees on activities, findings, achievements, and vulnerabilities related to the music-tourism goals.