Esports Travel Summit Highlights Evolving Industry

The 10th edition of the Esports Travel Summit took place this week in the Cincinnati region in the shadow of the famed Roebling Bridge, an apt location for an event that spotlighted how the industry is connecting one era of sports to another.

Getting underway Tuesday and wrapping up on Thursday, the event was held at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center in Covington, Kentucky, with guests staying at the adjoining Marriott on the banks of the Ohio River. More than 100 attendees took part in the festivities, which included an opening night at Velocity Esports in nearby Newport, Kentucky, on Tuesday, and a trip to a Cincinnati Reds-Milwaukee Brewers game at Great American Ballpark on Wednesday and the Late Night Lounge back at the Marriott after the game.

Jason Gewirtz, senior vice president/content, meetings and sports, Northstar Meetings Group as well as the publisher of SportsTravel, and SportsTravel Managing Editor Ted Keith hosted a series of panels throughout the event. The first panel of the week featured YouGov’s Global Head of Sports & Gaming, Nicole Pike, whose presentation on data surrounding esports travel revealed that 34% of U.S. esports fans have or will travel for live events, and 15% have done so in a different state from where they live.

Next, Gewirtz was joined by Simon Birchall, the eFootball Manager for FIFA, to discuss the launch of a new global esports and gaming experience called the FIFAe Festival.

Three panels during the week were titled, “Esports Success Story.” The first, hosted by SportsTravel‘s Mike Greco, shared how Marshalltown, Iowa, built a grassroots esports ecosystem. “Everything is a perpetual conversation, and it’s about growing together,” said Dylan Does, tourism director of Meet in Marshalltown.

The second “Esports Success Story” featured the team responsible for the debut this fall of “Future Play in Peoria,” an esports event and arts and technology festival that will take place in Peoria, Illinois, and bring up to 20,000 people to the Peoria Civic Center. Patrick Kelly, senior sales manager at Discover Peoria, drew on the lessons from watching his son, a gamer himself, to explore bringing esports to that city, a process that took more than two years but will pay off with an event that all sides are hopeful will last for years to come.

Finally, on Thursday morning, ToniAnn Convertino, the senior manager for business operations at Collegiate Sports Management Group, outlined the growth of the Collegiate Esports Commissioners Cup. “May Madness” is the premier national championship competition for collegiate esports teams, and this year’s edition took place in Waco, Texas, for the first time. The event drew more than 100 teams and led to significant local media coverage, as well as nearly $100,000 in hotel and AirBNB revenue, plus $180,000 in visitor spending.

Convertino also starred at the Reds-Brewers game, when she got tossed a ball between innings by Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourhio. That outing was sponsored by Discover Peoria, while other partners for the event included Discover Santa Clara, Destination Toronto (which will host the 2028 Esports Travel Summit) and Discover Tulsa (which will host the event next year).

In the final panel of the week, Boban Totovski, general secretary of the International Esports Foundation, referenced the World Cup as an example of the appeal of the United States as the host of major international events. “We want people to see the U.S. is not the big, bad country everyone thinks it is,” he said. “I just wanted you to know I like it and I enjoy it.”

Northstar itself is looking beyond the borders of the U.S. for its own growth.

During the event, Gewirtz announced that next spring Northstar will launch the TEAMS Asia Pacific Conference, to be held for the first time from April 21—22, 2027 in Singapore. It will be held at the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Center in conjunction with several other Northstar events, including The Meetings Show Asia Pacific, the Business Travel Show Asia Pacific and GTM Luxury Asia Pacific.