“You will not fail if you surround yourself with the right people, have the right leaders in place, and find the correct way to drive your team toward success.” — Ryan Bolton, Vice President of Product at Simpleview “At the end of the day, the culture has got to be authentic, and it’s got to stand…
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Plotting a new course in any industry is never easy. If you’re the early adopter or the leader of the pack, it’s compounded even more so by the structures and processes we have in place as businesses. In the early part of the last decade, some tourism destination organizations shifted to more…
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It’s no longer a point of discussion — there’s an obvious necessity for tourism to create legacy value improvements and assets for the places and people that choose to play host to visitors. As we re-organize and rationalize our destination organizations to serve citizens and visitors alike, we need…
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“The DMO got out of the way, and we let the passion of the resident talk to the passion of the visitor, and where that passion meets is where the transformation happens.” — Kristin Dunne, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand If you've been paying attention to the sustainability discussion in tourism for the…
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Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, destination organizations were midstream in dealing with digital disruption. Marketing for most destinations had shifted from predominantly paid media placement to earned media and intelligent social content. However, there was still a long way to go for destination…
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More and more, we see destination organizations worldwide launching innovative programs to engage local stakeholders in developing long-term strategies for regenerative tourism that serve both local citizens and travelers. And, yes, specifically in that order — local citizens first! Citizens must be…
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Episode guest: Greg Takehara, CEO of Tourism Cares Taleb Rifai, then secretary-general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), wrote this in the introduction to the 2016 United Nations Global Report on the Transformative Power of Tourism: “Tourism is much more than a leisure…
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Over the last three years on the Future of Tourism, we’ve talked a lot about destination development, stakeholder engagement, and the regenerative power of tourism when it's done well. But as my friend Petra Stušek, president at ECM and CEO of Ljubljana Tourism, likes to say — as of today, August…
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In Spring 2022, in Hamburg, Germany, the CityDNA International Conference & General Assembly convened its first in-person international conference and general assembly in two years. The theme was reunited destinations. It was a momentous event. Not only was it an opportunity for European Cities…
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Cultural heritage — is it a catalytic force for authentic destination development or a double-edged sword that must be wielded with skill and attention? The European Capitals of Culture (ECOC) initiative is an annual designation awarded to chosen European cities and designed to highlight the…
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