Think Like A Visitor

I used to think being a good listener meant keeping my door open, returning phone calls, and paying attention when someone had something to say. Those things matter. But after years of leading a destination marketing organization (DMO), I came to understand there’s a difference between listening to people and having a system that allows you to hear what you need to know. Every CEO develops a circle of people who talk to them. Board members call. Hotel general managers speak up. Elected officials have our numbers. Attractions, restaurateurs and community leaders know how to reach us. We see many of the same people at meetings, receptions and community events. Before long, it can feel as though we're hearing from the community. But are we? I think one of the most important questions a DMO CEO can ask is: Who isn't talking to me? The front-desk employee at a hotel probably knows more about the visitor experience than I do. So does the server who hears visitors complain about parki...

  One lesson I learned over years of leading a destination marketing organization (DMO) is that a CEO manages more than people, budgets, programs, and politics. You also manage something much easier to overlook: organizational attention. And there is never enough of it. DMOs operate in an environment where almost everything arrives wearing an “urgent” label. A community partner wants help promoting an event. A board member has an idea. A hotel needs something. The city calls. Someone discovers a new marketing opportunity. A sponsorship request, a meeting invitation, a social media issue, a research project, a new technology everyone says we need to investigate. Individually, many of these things are worthwhile. Collectively, they can paralyze an organization. I came to understand that one of my responsibilities as CEO was protecting the staff from unnecessary distraction. That didn't mean insulating them from the community or refusing to consider new ideas. It meant recognizing th...

  I’ve come to believe that every destination marketing organization has a bank account that doesn’t appear on its financial statements. It’s a reputation bank account. Every interaction with a hotelier, elected official, attraction, restaurant owner, board member, resident, reporter, or community partner either makes a small deposit or a small withdrawal. Most of those transactions are barely noticeable at the time. But over the years, they add up. And sooner or later, you may need to draw on that account. During my years leading a DMO, I learned that trust isn’t created by a clever marketing campaign or an impressive annual report. It is accumulated slowly through consistency. You say what you’re going to do, and then you do it. You return phone calls. You share information. You explain decisions. You give credit to partners. You don’t promise something simply because saying yes is easier than saying no. Those are deposits. Transparency is another deposit. That doesn’t mean every...

  After you've been in destination marketing for a long time, something interesting begins to happen. You find yourself sitting in meetings where you remember why a policy was created, who originally proposed a program, what happened the last time someone suggested a particular idea, and sometimes even what was tried twenty years ago. That institutional knowledge can be enormously valuable. It can also become dangerous. Experience gives us perspective. We recognize patterns. We remember mistakes and understand the personalities and history behind decisions that may otherwise make little sense. As a CEO, that knowledge helped me navigate difficult situations and occasionally recognize trouble before it arrived. But I've also come to believe that one of the greatest challenges for an experienced leader is making sure experience doesn't become an excuse for resisting change. Four words can quietly kill innovation in an organization: "We tried that before." Maybe we d...

One of the hardest lessons I learned as a destination marketing organization (DMO) CEO was that a good idea can still be the wrong idea for your organization. Destination marketing organizations attract ideas. Someone wants the DMO to sponsor a new festival. A community organization proposes a partnership. An elected official has an idea for a new event. A board member suggests a program they saw in another destination. A local business wants help promoting something. Most of these requests come from good people with good intentions, and many of the ideas are genuinely worthwhile. But worthwhile doesn't necessarily mean strategic. As a CEO, I always found saying yes easier than saying no. Yes builds goodwill. It makes people happy. And it makes us appear collaborative and responsive. But every yes has a cost. It requires money, staff time, attention, meetings, emails, follow-up, and, perhaps most importantly, organizational energy. Eventually, enough small yeses can pull an organiz...

  When people ask what a destination marketing organization (DMO) does, the conversation usually turns to advertising campaigns, visitor guides, websites, and social media. Those things certainly matter, but after spending decades leading a destination marketing organization, I've come to believe that one of a CEO's greatest responsibilities has very little to do with marketing itself. It has everything to do with bringing people together. In my experience, the most successful destinations are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the communities where leaders understand that progress happens when organizations stop working beside one another and start working with one another. Tourism doesn't exist in isolation. It intersects with economic development, downtown revitalization, arts and culture, parks and recreation, chambers of commerce, local government, hospitality businesses, nonprofits, and residents. When those groups share a common vision, remarkable ...