Population shifts impacting the U.S. Heartland, the Southeast and communities like Salt Lake City will continue into 2026 and require meeting planners, suppliers and hoteliers to rethink deployment of resources. This topic is addressed in Connecting the Dots, a series of monthly conversations with Michael Dominguez, President and CEO of Associated Luxury Hotels International. The series examines issues in the global economy that will “connect the dots” to be helpful not only in business but in life as well.
Michael Dominguez: One of the trends we've really been looking at, and it's an important one to pay attention to for a variety of reasons, whether you're a meeting professional or whether you're on the supplier side of our business, has been a large population shift throughout this country, and it was kind of under the radar because much of it was happening during the pandemic while news coverage was all about the pandemic.
So, the reason this is important? There's two areas that we're really talking about that had not been mentioned much before. First is the Heartland of the United States, and that is literally going down the middle of our country, and these are areas that we had not talked about, South Dakota being most of note. A lot of investment going in, many data centers, which means population shifts to run those data centers, build those data centers, employees that are moving into these areas, and most importantly, investment. If you look at investment numbers, investment numbers are spiking into the Heartland of the United States. That is not something we have heard. They have had the largest population shift, in the heartland, if you look at it between 2022 and 2025.
The other piece of this equation is really the Southeast, and the Southeast is everything between Texas and Florida. Yes, of course, Texas and Florida. But between Texas and Florida, you're seeing a mass movement of population shift, again, with businesses. You’re seeing a lot of tech, a lot of manufacturing and a lot of data centers as well being built in these areas.
The Carolinas have been on fire. I've called out Salt Lake City—kind of under the radar—and Salt Lake City is exploding with new businesses and new movement into those regions. And, of course, Texas, Dallas specifically, has one of the largest growths of corporate headquarters that are moving to Dallas, Texas. Texas now employs more people in the insurance and financial world than the state of New York. I think of note that we should be mentioning is, as of yesterday, the SEC has actually approved the new stock exchange that will launch in Texas in 2026. Largest raise we've seen from a stock exchange ever. So, you are going to have competition under the NYSE umbrella, by the way.
But that is telling you there's a real shift in Texas, where Texas used to be thought of as oil and gas and energy, and now it is very much becoming a financial hub for the United States. So, a lot of shift in business.
What does this mean to you? Well, if you are a meeting professional, think about people coming to your meeting specifically, if it is a meeting that is optional, think about an association meeting or any meeting where attendance is not necessarily mandatory. The one thing I would be taking a look at is where people are coming from may not have been where they came from in the past depending the last time they were with you at a meeting. The reason that's going to matter, it may add connections, it may add cost, depending on what part of the country. You move into the heartland of the United States, sometimes the air travel is going to be much more expensive, depending on those destinations than other areas. There's these things that you shouldn't take as an assumption that it's the same as what it was maybe four to five years ago.
It's just making sure that we're being very, very light on our feet and making sure we're being intentional about the information and data. If you're in the sales and marketing side, or if you're on the supplier side or on your own business here, realize your customer base may have changed dramatically. If you're a hotelier, I would be challenging you to really look at your deployment. What is your deployment look like and how should you change that knowing how businesses are changing. You know, we did a snapshot of the businesses that have moved to Texas; 180 companies have moved to Texas already. What does that do to our deployment? How are we covering it? How do we cover it best? It's like anything else. We talk about change is inevitable. We know change is going to come at us, but the pace of change and the speed of change that's coming at us requires us as leaders and requires us as professionals to be much more on top of it, much more questioning each and every day. What did I know yesterday that may have changed today or may not at all apply today?
Those are the things we're going to have to be looking at. These shifts are going to continue to come. They're not going to slow down. We see more of it on the horizon, so you need to make sure we're paying attention to it, making sure we pay attention to those type of moves, and what it means to you and your business.