Destination Discourse

Destination Discourse
  • 5.0 (13)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

Destination Discourse is the essential podcast for DMOs and travel industry professionals who want to stay ahead in destination marketing, stewardship, and management. Hosted by industry experts Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker, each episode delves into the key issues and trends shaping the future of tourism. From cutting-edge innovations to the complex challenges of destination management, we offer thought-provoking insights, honest debates, and practical takeaways. Part love letter to the industry, part therapy session, and part user manual, Destination Discourse is your trusted source for real talk and expert advice. Join us to explore inspiring campaigns, hear from leading voices, and gain the insights you need to elevate your destination strategies.

  1. 1d ago

    92: Is Your DMO Chasing Relevance When It Should Be Fighting for Significance?

    In this episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker recap Adam's latest CMO Jam - a live, candid roundtable with six DMO marketing leaders - and dig into the ideas that stuck. The biggest one: panelist Christian Mingle pushed back on the word "relevance," calling it table stakes - do people know we exist? He argued DMOs should chase significance instead: do we actually move the needle for our destination? The framing reshaped the rest of the discussion. They also cover the agency model's unraveling. Multiple CMO Jam panelists said they'd fired their agency of record in favor of specialists hired for specific problems, as in-house teams get more capable with AI. Adam argues agencies must shift from selling execution to selling strategy and partnership, and predicts real disruption over the next three years. The conversation closes on budget: money is moving from paid media into content, but not owned content. Stuart makes the case for incentivizing residents and locals to create authentic destination content instead of DMOs producing and owning it themselves - trading control for reach and distribution. Adam also announces DMO Jam, a new recurring mastermind cohort for destination marketers, expanding on the CMO Jam format. Bottom Line: Relevance just means people know you exist. Significance means you can prove impact - and that's the bar DMOs, and their agencies, now have to clear.

  2. Jul 23

    91: Is Your DMO Website Still Just a Listings Page in an AI World? (Will Wright)

    AI is already cutting DMOs out of the trip-planning conversation - and Will Wright (Destination Core) thinks most destination websites are wasting the one asset that could save them: real local knowledge. Will's thesis: DMOs are sitting on one of the most powerful editorial assets in travel - trusted, local, authentic knowledge - but keep acting like paid listing sites instead of genuine local experts. His fix is a layered approach to data. Below the "hygiene" facts (hours, room counts, amenities) that OTAs already own, there's a "vibe" layer - subjective, experiential judgment that only comes from people who've actually been there. He argues DMOs could become an accreditation layer: not hosting reviews themselves, but vouching for which ones are legitimate, like a digital version of the vanishing visitor information center. Stuart pushes back hard - member businesses will revolt if you start scoring them, and scraping reviews off TripAdvisor and Expedia runs straight into their terms of service. The two go back and forth on whether accreditation is realistic or just a nice idea that dies on contact with stakeholders. Also covered: Claude's new consumer-facing trip-planning feature and what it signals about AI disintermediating DMO websites entirely, and why DMOs may have been collecting first-party data for the wrong reasons all along. Bottom Line: Your website's opening-hours-and-amenities data is already commodity information. The differentiator is the layer only your team can provide - genuine, experienced, local judgment - and if you're not building that, an AI or an OTA will fill the gap for you.

  3. Jul 16

    90: Why Would AI Ever Trust Your DMO's Content?

    In this episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker tackle a question most DMOs would rather avoid: why should AI ever trust your content over anyone else's? Stuart's thesis - DMOs have grown addicted to equitable treatment of every stakeholder, from alphabetized hotel lists to identical exposure for every attraction, even when real-world demand isn't equal. The conversation opens with Stu's News: Meta's new AI-powered search inside Facebook, now synthesizing answers instead of pointing to profiles, plus the controversy over Meta's "Muse" image tool training on public photos - both signals of how fast AI is reshaping the search landscape DMOs operate in. Stuart's example: if Ripley's Aquarium pulls 5x the visitation of Ripley's Believe It or Not, why promote both the same? He argues DMOs need a firewall between promotional and editorial content, like old-school newspapers. Adam pushes back: the fix isn't softer language, it's stakeholder education - clear performance criteria (a review-score threshold, say 4.2+) and the courage to tell underperforming members they won't be featured until the experience improves. They also flag a measurement problem: referral traffic to stakeholder sites, the metric most DMOs lean on, is heading toward zero as bookings move inside closed AI ecosystems. Bottom Line: LLMs don't reward promoters, they reward trust - and no DMO is entitled to it.

  4. Jul 9

    89: Is Your DMO Still Treating AI Like a Toy Instead of a Teammate? (Dan Flores)

    Dan Flores, Head of Tourism at Satisfi Labs, joins Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker with an uncomfortable premise: most DMOs are still treating AI like a gadget instead of a coworker. Dan explains why "we need AI on the website" isn't a strategy, and why organizations without a written, department-by-department plan can't assign ownership, measure ROI, or know if a tool is actually working. The conversation turns tactical fast. Stuart shares that Visit Myrtle Beach is benchmarking employee AI comfort and effectiveness through survey data before hiring a dedicated internal AI engineer, treating the role like a new department alongside IT and HR. Dan describes how Satisfi Labs froze every team for 30 days to standardize tools company-wide, then had to walk back over-automation once token costs spiked. Adam draws the line between consumer-facing AI strategy and internal efficiency, and shares how one Claude conversation delivered a 19-point LinkedIn audit that turned into 5-6x engagement growth. Before the AI talk, Stuart and Adam dig into the viral wave of international visitors documenting their first trips to America during the World Cup, and why every DMO should study those videos as a reminder of what makes their own destination remarkable to outsiders. Bottom Line: If your DMO can't name who owns AI, what problem it's solving, and how you'll measure success, you don't have a strategy. You have a tool nobody's accountable for.

  5. Jul 2

    88: Is Your DMO Protecting Itself Into Irrelevance? (Chris Fair)

    Most DMOs talk about economic impact. Chris Fair, CEO of Resonance Co and author of the annual Best Cities report, talks about something harder to measure — and more consequential: whether a city is actually lovable. In this episode, Fair shares data from Resonance's perception vs. performance analysis across hundreds of destinations. The gap between how a place performs on objective metrics and how people actually feel about it is where most DMO strategies fall apart. DMOs that focus narrowly on defending their budget and organizational territory are becoming obsolete — while cities that integrate tourism, economic development, and community quality into a unified lovability strategy are pulling ahead. The conversation gets into why the traditional DMO model is structurally misaligned with how people actually choose destinations today, what the Best Cities data reveals about which markets are winning and why, and what it would take for a DMO to genuinely lead a city's positioning rather than just promote it. Bottom Line: DMOs that protect their narrow lane are engineering their own irrelevance. The ones that survive will be the ones willing to own the harder question - not just "are people visiting?" but "do people love this place?" - and build the cross-sector partnerships to do something about it.

  6. Jun 25

    87: Would Your Stakeholders Fight to Keep You If You Disappeared Tomorrow? (Gary Sherwin)

    Most DMOs measure success in website clicks and visitor guide downloads. Gary Sherwin has spent 20 years at Visit Newport Beach asking a harder question: if you disappeared tomorrow, would your stakeholders call you essential - or just convenient? This episode covers the implications of Google I/O, where itinerary builders and shopping carts inside search may soon make the DMO website an afterthought, through to Gary's case that technology disruption has never been the real threat. He's seen the internet, the OTAs, and now AI - and DMOs that survived all three did it by becoming indispensable to their communities. That means funnel reviews where hotels open their full pipeline and you strategize on closing business together. It means crashing the BAFTAs in London without asking permission and building an event PBS eventually broadcasts to millions. It means a private funding model where major hotels voluntarily give Visit Newport Beach 5% of revenue on 10-year deals - because they've decided it's worth it. Stuart and Adam push back on the Google question, debate agentic search, and ask whether DMOs are harvesting demand their partners should be converting themselves. Bottom Line: The technology disruption is real, but it isn't the existential threat. The threat is DMOs that stay convenient instead of becoming essential. Gary's prescription: build relationships deep enough that your stakeholders fight for you, not just renew with you.

  7. Jun 18

    86: Are You Still Doing Work That AI Should Be Doing For You? (Dan Holowack & Jeanette Roush)

    Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker welcome back Dan Holowack (CrowdRift) and Jeanette Roush (Brand USA) for a tactical deep dive into how DMOs are actually using AI day-to-day. The episode opens with a provocative Stu's News: 92% of respondents to an AI-enthusiast newsletter poll said they want more regulation — a number that surprises even the hosts. The group unpacks the growing backlash, from commencement speech boos to younger generations feeling shut out of the American dream, and why communicating purpose may matter more than promising prosperity. The conversation then shifts to practical tools. Jeanette and Dan break down voice-to-text tools like Monologue and WhisperFlow — how they outperform traditional dictation, boost speed 3–4x, and why building the habit is the hardest part. The group also digs into Granola and the Plod recording device: how Brand USA deployed them across their entire IPW team, creating a shared, queryable knowledge base from every meeting. Stuart shares how building Claude skills has cut his podcast publishing time nearly in half, and the group challenges DMOs to audit their workflows and identify what AI can automate today. Bottom Line: The tools are here, they work, and the gap between DMOs using 20% of AI's potential and those using 70% is growing fast. Start with voice, start with meetings, and start building skills — the technology is no longer the barrier.

  8. Jun 11

    85: Are DMOs Focused on the Wrong Things at the Worst Possible Time? (Emily Zertuche)

    What happens when destination marketing organizations start optimizing for short-term ROI at the exact moment AI is fundamentally changing how travelers discover destinations? In this thought-provoking episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker welcome back recurring guest Emily Zertuche for one of the most important conversations the show has tackled yet. The discussion dives deep into Emily’s latest Substack article and the growing disconnect between what DMOs are prioritizing and how traveler behavior is rapidly evolving in the AI era. As generative AI increasingly becomes the “decision-making layer” between travelers and destinations, the trio explores why brand visibility, citations, and discoverability may matter more than traditional performance metrics like clicks and conversions. Topics include: Why DMOs may be focused on the wrong things at the worst possible time The shift from attribution to citation in the AI era How AI is changing destination discoverability Why cutting top-of-funnel brand investment could become catastrophic The rise of the “visibility economy” The danger of optimizing for the next board meeting instead of the next decade Why DMOs must rethink their purpose, KPIs, and stakeholder relationships How destinations can create “content armies” to remain visible in AI-generated travel planning Practical ways organizations can begin adopting AI internally right now The episode also features a Stu’s News segment covering how companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are accelerating AI adoption through hands-on business implementation and training programs. Whether you’re a DMO executive, marketer, tourism professional, or simply trying to understand how AI will reshape the future of travel marketing, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

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About

Destination Discourse is the essential podcast for DMOs and travel industry professionals who want to stay ahead in destination marketing, stewardship, and management. Hosted by industry experts Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker, each episode delves into the key issues and trends shaping the future of tourism. From cutting-edge innovations to the complex challenges of destination management, we offer thought-provoking insights, honest debates, and practical takeaways. Part love letter to the industry, part therapy session, and part user manual, Destination Discourse is your trusted source for real talk and expert advice. Join us to explore inspiring campaigns, hear from leading voices, and gain the insights you need to elevate your destination strategies.

Information

  • Creator
    Destination Discourse
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    93
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Destination Discourse