There are a number of reasons why Destination Marketing Organizations need to build and maintain a high level of engagement with their partners. Those relationships generate great content for marketing, enable the DMO to more effectively choreograph the visitor experience and build esprit d'corps and can lead to increased private sector investment in the agencies work.
It also ensures that, when someone decides to take a run at your DMO's public sector funding, there will be a cadre of influential business people at your side to help explain why your organization is critical to the future success of both their businesses as well as the community at large. Which is exactly what happened this week in Tuolumne County.
County Board Supervisors there had proposed capping the DMO's budget. A public hearing was scheduled...and began with one of the Supervisors calling for a contract extension to give the Board more time to consider the proposal:
"We’ve had a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls, obviously this room is packed full of people… But it was apparent for me that for me to make really a truly informed decision, I want to know what the visitors bureau budget is, I want to know what their business plan is, because to me this is more of a business-plan-projection type of decision and I didn’t have access to that or time to review that before today’s meeting.”
And isn't this how so often it goes. An idea is floated, sounds reasonable at first take...and then is enacted with precious little critical thought as to the ramifications of the action. Only when there's a roomful of people looking on and ready to challenge do many elected officials take a step back to more fully understand an issue. Without an engaged partner base, this proposal may well have sailed through unimpeded. But, it won't.
Visit Tuolumne County has clearly fostered such a partnership with its business community...and now has the attention of its County Board with which to tell its compelling story.
Partner Engagement...because you don't want to hear this at the Barricades.
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