Today, I’m honored to be joined by our two incredible Advocacy Committee Chairs: Gary Sanchez from Visit Dallas, who is completing his second and final year as co-chair, and Julie Gilbert from Destination Door County, who’s wrapping up her first year in this leadership role. In 2024, the Advocacy Committee tackled a range of pressing topics — from crisis preparedness and sustainability to community engagement and the evolving policy landscape. Today, we’ll take a deep dive into these discussions...
Dec 22, 2024•33 min•Ep. 32
Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by none other than Josiah Brown, also known as the New York Sherpa, who served as the emcee for our recent Advocacy Summit in Puerto Rico this October. As the summit's guide and a keen observer, Josiah had a front-row seat to some of the most dynamic conversations happening on and off the stage. From strategies for enhanced community engagement to navigating the challenges of tourism funding and resident sentiment, he witnessed firsthand the passion, ideas, and s...
Dec 01, 2024•32 min•Ep. 31
Today, we have a continued announcement to introduce the new Accessibility Playbook, a comprehensive and actionable framework designed to enhance accessibility across the tourism landscape. This playbook isn't just a guide; it's a powerful tool packed with hundreds of resources, tips, and real-world use cases that can help you align your destination with the needs of all visitors. Whether you're managing a small team or a large-scale operation, the playbook's customizable components allow you to...
Oct 20, 2024•36 min•Ep. 30
Our guest today is Amir Eylon, the President and CEO of Longwoods International, a leader in tourism & Destination research. Amir brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the table, especially when it comes to understanding resident sentiment towards tourism. Longwoods International has been at the forefront of gathering and analyzing data to help destinations understand how their residents feel about tourism in their communities. This research is crucial for creating sustainable and p...
Jul 14, 2024•35 min•Ep. 29
Welcome to our special and final 3 of 3 podcast episode arc around the release of our brand-new research study, Destination Promotion: A Catalyst for Community Vitality. This report emphasizes the pivotal role of destination organizations in shaping the economic and cultural landscape of communities that go beyond the realms of traditional tourism. Our discussion today will unravel how these organizations act as catalysts for a broad spectrum of economic benefits on behalf of research and analys...
May 26, 2024•31 min•Ep. 28
Welcome to a special 2 of 3 podcast episode arc around the release of our brand-new research study, Destination Promotion: A Catalyst for Community Vitality. The report emphasizes the pivotal role of destination organizations in shaping the economic and cultural landscape of communities far beyond the realms of traditional tourism. Our discussion today will unravel how these organizations, act as catalysts for a broad spectrum of economic benefits. Through research and analysis provided by Touri...
Apr 14, 2024•33 min•Ep. 27
Welcome to a special 1 of 3 podcast episode arc around the release of our brand-new research study, Destination Promotion: A Catalyst for Community Vitality and its key findings. The report emphasizes the pivotal role of destination organizations in shaping the economic and cultural landscape of communities far beyond the realms of traditional tourism. Our discussion will unravel how these organizations, by transcending their conventional focus solely on the hospitality sector, act as catalysts ...
Mar 24, 2024•35 min•Ep. 26
Today’s podcast episode and the first for the new year takes into the realm of community connectors for the greater good of collaboration. (a tongue twister) As destination organizations, our role and primary stewardship is the Community! We foster economic development, quality of place, and community vitality. All through the power of collaboration! In many ways, collaboration is our greatest asset as we are neither silos nor single-source solutions for many of the problems facing our destinati...
Feb 04, 2024•31 min•Ep. 25
Today’s podcast episode and guests is our final one for 2023 and a reflection of our advocacy committee for destinations international. Destinations International is a tapestry of volunteer committees and task forces that help guide and initiate much of the output and direction the association takes year after year. Committee members constitute a myriad of different organizations across the members of destinations international and volunteer their time in a number of different ways. For the advo...
Dec 17, 2023•38 min•Ep. 24
The 2023 Advocacy Summit in Little Rock, AR brought forward major releases on behalf of Destinations International and our ongoing advocacy efforts. Listen to the advocacy team walk through all our releases and with links to everything in the show notes. Community Vitality Wheel: Community Vitality Wheel | Destinations International Destination Effect: The Destination Effect A Destination Promotion Community Index: A Destination Promotion Community Index | Destinations International Destinations...
Nov 05, 2023•33 min•Ep. 23
Today’s conversation and guests to the show are here to discuss the flagship research project that was just released at Annual Convention, the 2023 DestinationNEXT Future Study. What is the future study for those unaware? Well, Picture this: Over 800 destination leaders from 62 countries, all coming together to share their take on the sector’s trends and strategies shaping our landscape. This isn't just any report – it's the biggest and most extensive survey of its kind, providing a sneak peek i...
Sep 10, 2023•30 min•Ep. 22
As a listener of the show, we talk tales of advocacy of both the past and present but today is one hypothetical for a near-term future. This isn’t going to be your typical talk around A.I that we have heard in our sector but instead, all about understanding how A.I can be used for Destination Advocacy. To talk through these possibilities, I’m happy to welcome to the show, Janette Roush, Executive Vice President Marketing and Digital of NYC Tourism + Conventions. NYC Tourism + Conventions Destina...
Jul 30, 2023•25 min•Ep. 21
Today’s conversation and guest is a deeper dive into one of the largest regional demographics of our membership of destination organizations, which is in the Southeast corner of the United States. Destinations International understands we can’t always be everywhere and try to work with regional and community entities that geographically represent these highly clustered areas of destination organizations. And for good reason, even though we are seeing more and more advocacy issues across state/pr...
Jul 02, 2023•23 min•Ep. 20
Today’s conversation and guest are unlike one you have ever heard on our show before and I am not just talking about the who, what, and where of the story (all of which are great!) but really understanding what “a good place to live is a good place to visit” means to a destination few of us have been. Something I know our guest hopes to change for us all! Oulu, Finland is having a moment, and not just against the backdrop of the world which includes sharing a border with Russia, being recently a...
Jun 04, 2023•33 min•Ep. 19
Today’s conversation is all about shipbuilding in a sense. Running a destination organization is tough, and managing one in a pandemic is tougher but what about trying to actually create a brand-new destination organization through a once-in-a-century event? (We hope) Today’s guest is all about what it’s like to launch a ship in the roughest of waters and somehow steer it through to the other side in hopes of finding prosperity and vitality for one’s community. Please welcome to the show, Jeff L...
May 07, 2023•26 min•Ep. 18
Today’s conversation and guest is intended to be a peak behind the curtains of managing the destination’s brand through extremely polarizing times. I’ve mentioned at lengths at which the world has begun to spin, it seems in more illogical ways and an outcome of that resulting in issues and policies entering the zeitgeist of our communities in a polarizing fashion. The job at a destination organization was already tough because of the pandemic and many other complications from 2020 but how do you...
Apr 02, 2023•31 min•Ep. 17
Starting out 2023, this is the first year I think we can confidently say what a return to business events looks like for our industry. In the past 3 years, we’ve seen the ebb and flow, the starting and stopping and starting again of business events navigating the pandemic and its many variants and also various country-level regulations around the mitigations surrounding those risks. But with the added twist of political and global unrest as well as climate change. What is left now is business ev...
Feb 26, 2023•28 min•Ep. 16
2022 for many of us could be called the next normal year through our progression of the pandemic timeline we are all in. With the return of events, holiday gatherings, social events and other pre-pandemic activities, some might even call it “normal.” With that, we have seen some societal norms shift as well, and one I would argue being the biggest shift and potential winner of 2022 is the adoption of cannabis and hemp through both policy, legislation, and social intersections. A green wave, one ...
Jan 29, 2023•46 min•Ep. 15
At the start of 2022, we at Destinations International outlined 8 strategic issues and opportunities for the sector and around the world in our next normal. The 8th issue we outlined was climate change and the many climate crises many of our destination organizations find themselves in. For some, this might be a recent or new challenge they are facing but for many of our coastal destinations, this has always been part of the gig and have been doing their diligence to prepare, prepare, and prepar...
Nov 20, 2022•29 min•Ep. 14
One of the reasons why we wanted to start a podcast was to tell the tale of advocacy of our sector across major moments, both present and past. With our guest today we get to actually talk about advocacy an entire millennium ago and how it shaped a destination’s future. You might know him as Chief Instigator for DMOPROZ and fellow podcast host of DMOU, but today, Bill Geist has joined us to go back to the late 80s and early nineties about the WRIGHT for Wisconsin and the 25th anniversary of the ...
Sep 25, 2022•44 min•Ep. 13
As part of Destinations International’s eight core issues and opportunities for 2022 for our sector, I’m pleased for today’s guest to talk about both sustainability and values of the business events community to help bring to the world stage. Matthias Schultze and the German Convention Bureau have been leading with sustainable development goals for both his organization and for Deutschland for an extended period of time. The GCB has illustrated what the long view of sustainability means for a CV...
Aug 29, 2022•35 min•Ep. 12
The Destinations International Foundation is the "incubator" of new things for our sector. It is our industry’s "think tank." The body of experts supplying advice, ideas, and approaches to specific issues. The group works to process ideas, research a topic, analyze a strategy, or create an agenda. The Destinations International Foundation Annual Challenge program is our way of bringing these concepts to life. This year’s challenge started in April when we kicked off months of discussions, resear...
Jul 17, 2022•39 min•Ep. 11
One of the pillars of becoming a community shared value is answering the question of who is our customer? Long-time listeners will know the answer to this and that being the community and resident. However, it’s one thing for us to understand the resident being our customer, it's another if the resident understands us, the destination organization? This is where the care for Door County pledge for Destination Door County comes in play, a unique pledge for both residents and visitors alike to bet...
May 08, 2022•34 min•Ep. 10
One of the many things we watch for in destinations is what we call flashpoint politics or events. Largely an event that takes place within a destination, largely outside of the control of the destination organization but yet, leaves the destination organization remaining to pick up the pieces. One of the largest events we have seen in the history of our sector is what occurred in the summer of 2017 in Charlottesville Va. Now, today is not for a retelling of those events but to really talk about...
Mar 27, 2022•30 min•Ep. 9
Strategic planning is a key pillar to every advocacy plan, and essential for the future of our community's visitor economy. We talk today with Andrew Hiebel President/CEO of AACB and Australia's plan for the next decade of their visitor economy. AACB Website Thrive 2030 Destinations International Events The Architects of Destination Advocacy Podcast is a part of the Destination Marketing Podcast Network. It is hosted by Andreas Weissenborn and Jack Johnson and produced by Relic.
Feb 15, 2022•34 min•Ep. 8
No story in 2021 has captured the advocacy department's attention like the story of Visit Duluth. In short, the city of Duluth Minnesota has selected an outside/out of state agency to represent the community of Duluth with the role of Visit Duluth taking a much much smaller role in the representation of the community. This after a lengthy RFP/RFQ process and with Visit Duluth representing the destinations for almost 87 years. I could spend hours talking about Visit Duluth and the broader industr...
Dec 12, 2021•39 min•Ep. 7
For Veterans Day, we wanted to talk to a veteran in our industry about both his service to our country and his destination. Wes Rhea, president, and CEO of Visit Stockton talks to us about his time in the military and the skills and knowledge gained that put him on the path to being a great destination leader. Wes shares his experience during his time in service and provides intel on why more destination organizations should consider veterans as part of their growing workforce. Those that chose ...
Nov 07, 2021•33 min•Ep. 6
We wanted to do something special for one of our pillar tools with Destinations International and the celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the event impact calculator (EIC) https://destinationsinternational.org/event-impact-calculator Today we will be talking to two special individuals that many of you know if you have used EIC and that is Chris Pike from Tourism Economics and our very own Elaine Rosquist of IACVB, DMAI and now Destinations International. Both individuals have been instrume...
Oct 10, 2021•34 min•Ep. 5
For this episode, we want to try something a little bit different with our guest and talk with someone who helps destinations and engages with destination organizations on this very medium we are speaking today. Adam Stoker of Relic Agency joins us today to discuss the growing podcast ecosystem and how destination organizations should consider this format as a unique tool to deliver your messaging to both residents and visitors alike. We’ll discuss our love for the format and also unique ways de...
Sep 01, 2021•39 min•Ep. 4
For this episode, we want to introduce Cassandra McAuley, Vice President, Communications & Stakeholder Engagement at Tourism Calgary. For today, we wanted to dive into 2017 Cassandra and the unveiling of the 10 year, Destination Strategy. To learn more about the inflection, the research, and undertones that lead to such a monumental long-term investment and pivot for her destination. Tourism Calgary: https://www.visitcalgary.com/industry-partners/destination-development/destination-strategy ...
Jul 11, 2021•40 min•Ep. 3
