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When a Team Member Becomes Toxic: A Leadership Challenge Every DMO CEO Must Face

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Destination Marketing Organizations are relationship-driven businesses. Success depends on collaboration, creativity, trust, and a shared commitment to serving visitors, stakeholders, and the community. While DMO leaders spend considerable time building external relationships, one of the most difficult leadership challenges often emerges internally: managing an employee who has become toxic to the organization. Toxic employees can be found in organizations of every size. They may be high performers, long-term staff members, or even individuals with strong industry knowledge. What makes them toxic is not necessarily their job performance but the negative impact they have on workplace culture, morale, teamwork, and organizational effectiveness. For a DMO President-CEO, ignoring the problem is rarely an option. The first responsibility of leadership is to objectively identify the behavior. Toxicity can take many forms: constant negativity, gossip, undermining coworkers, resistance to chan...
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The CEO's Most Important Job Isn't Marketing—It's Making Sense of Complexity

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For many destination marketing organization CEOs, the job description appears straightforward: attract visitors, support the local tourism industry, and promote the destination. In reality, however, the most important responsibility of a DMO leader may have little to do with marketing at all. Today's DMO CEO serves as a chief "sense maker." Every day, destination leaders are bombarded with information. Research reports arrive weekly. Stakeholders offer opinions from every direction. Board members bring their own priorities and perspectives. Elected officials have expectations. Industry trends emerge and evolve rapidly. Economic conditions shift. Technology changes. Consumer behavior changes. Sometimes, seemingly contradictory data points compete for attention. The challenge is not a lack of information. The challenge is determining what matters. One of the CEO's most valuable contributions is filtering information overload into meaningful insight. Staff members, board...
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Handling Criticism as a DMO Leader: Using the RAIN Method to Stay Grounded

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  If you lead a Destination Marketing Organization, criticism comes with the territory. Sometimes it arrives in a board meeting. Sometimes it appears in an email from a hotel partner. Occasionally, it shows up on social media where everyone can see it. Whether the criticism is fair, unfair, constructive, or emotional, how you respond often matters more than the criticism itself. One of the most valuable tools a DMO President/CEO can use is the RAIN Method: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture. Originally developed as a mindfulness practice, RAIN offers a practical framework for processing feedback without spiraling into self-doubt or shutting down emotionally. Recognize What Is Happening The first step is simply acknowledging your reaction. When criticism arrives, most leaders experience an immediate emotional response. You may feel defensive, embarrassed, frustrated, angry, or even fearful. Before responding, recognize what is happening internally. Ask yourself: What am I fe...
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Ten Financial Controls Every DMO Should Have in Place

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For many Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) leaders, the monthly financial report presented to the board is far more than a collection of numbers. It is a reflection of the organization's stewardship, transparency, and accountability. Board members rely on those reports to make informed decisions, monitor organizational health, and fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities. Strong financial reporting doesn't happen by accident. It is the result of sound accounting procedures, clearly defined responsibilities, and internal controls that protect both the organization and the people responsible for managing its resources. Here are ten essential financial practices every DMO should have in place. 1. Separate Financial Duties No single employee should control every aspect of a financial transaction. The person approving expenditures should not be the same person writing checks or reconciling bank statements. Separating responsibilities reduces the opportunity for errors or frau...
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The Mental Health of DMO Leaders Matters More Than We Talk About

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There is a strange expectation placed on Destination Marketing Organization leaders. The Executive Director or President-CEO is often expected to be a strategist, cheerleader, crisis manager, fundraiser, politician, economist, public speaker, mediator, salesperson, and visionary, sometimes all before lunch. The pressure can become relentless. Unlike many leadership positions, DMO leadership carries a unique emotional burden. Your success is publicly measured. Hotel occupancy, tax collections, visitation numbers, stakeholder satisfaction, political relationships, community perception, staff morale, media narratives, and board expectations all seem to converge in one office. And because tourism is tied so closely to economics and public perception, every challenge can feel personal. Many DMO leaders quietly carry stress they never openly discuss.  That silence can become dangerous. Mental health is not weakness. Burnout is not failure. Anxiety is not incompetence. In fact, many of th...
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From Marketing to Management: Why DMOs Are Evolving

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For years, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) were mainly evaluated based on one key question: “How many visitors did you bring here?” This focus made sense back when many communities were all about growing. More visitors meant more hotel stays, more restaurant visits, more shopping, and ultimately more tax money for local services and a better quality of life. Marketing was the driving force. Advertising, branding, visitor guides, public relations, and trade shows were the tools they used. But tourism has changed, and so have the expectations that communities have for the organizations that represent them. Today, many DMOs are transforming into Destination Management Organizations, a small change in wording that really shows a big shift in what they’re responsible for. The modern visitor economy isn’t just about how many people are coming. More and more, destinations are asking important questions: Are visitors making life better for the people who live there? Is tourism a sus...
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Four Words That Build a Destination

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“You did great work on this.” Four simple words. But for a leader in a Destination Marketing Organization, they may be the most powerful words you can say. Not in a board presentation or a press release—but in the hallway, over coffee, or in the quiet after a long event. Leadership doesn’t always look like a podium. Often, it sounds like genuine encouragement. We talk a lot about visitor experience. What will they see? How will they feel? What will they remember? But there’s a direct line between how your team feels and how your destination is perceived. When the people doing the work feel seen and valued, their work gets better. More thoughtful. More creative. More inspired. “You did great work on this” is more than praise. It’s acknowledgment. It’s leadership that sees beyond deliverables and into the effort behind them. The grant proposal that took three late nights. The itinerary brainstormed over lukewarm coffee. The front desk team member who turned a complaint into a compliment....
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