We talk of it often. How today's DMO Boards seem to struggle with their role.
Some seem to believe it's benign oversight. Others think they should be directing Sales & Marketing.
The best DMO Boards, as we contend in Destination Leadership, open doors, make things happen and advocate for destination development and organizational support.
Which is pretty much what Bill Hoffman says in this great post on GuideStar.
Just in a different way.
I'm on a flight back to "the compound" after a great day ideating the future of Destination Marketing with members of the Texas Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus (thanks for the invitation and kind welcome, y'all).
One of the suggestions I offered was to jettison programs and tactics that no longer provided value, no matter how successful they had once been. My example was the intentional cannibalization of Apple's monster-selling product, the iPod. 350 million iPods had been sold worldwide when the plug was finally pulled on the line (with the lone exception of the iPod touch), earlier this year.
Steve Jobs knew what he was about to do with the release of the iPhone in 2007. Combining a phone and music player would ultimately make the iPod superfluous. And, because Apple could sell iPhones at a higher price point, Steve was willing to take the risk of killing off what was, at the time, one of the most popular products the company had ever released.
Conversely, Sears clearly didn't know what it was doing, according to this fascinating piece in Successful Meetings magazine. Instead of changing with the shifting marketplace, they instinctively doubled down on keeping their most loyal customers. Which, as we all witnessed this year, was the wrong move, despite earning a brief reprieve from a bankruptcy court earlier today.
So, what's holding you back?
It's one of my favorite Don Henley lyrics:
There's three sides to every story, babe. There's yours and there's mine and the cold hard truth.
It's a pretty universal truth...and one that is playing out in Santa Clara CA, where the City has announced its intention to cut its contract with the Chamber of Commerce there to provide management services for its Convention Center and Destination Marketing services.
The City's "truth" is an audit of the Convention Center. The Chamber's truth is that, for decades, no one had indicated any dissatisfaction with the job it was doing.
And, the "cold hard truth?" Hell if I know...but there's something pretty powerful about this story and this analysis in the region's alternative newspaper.
Maybe it's that I'm consistently amazed when government utilizes outside "audit" firms that have no concept of the industry in which we work. Maybe it's that a blind devotion to political agenda derails the success of so many destinations (and the citizens who depend upon a professionally guided destination marketing strategy for their livelihood).
And maybe, just maybe, there will come a day where our cities are managed by individuals who are actually trained professionals that care more for their communities than their contributors and re-election plans.
On this World Tourism Day, we celebrate the positive impact, both fiscally and socially, that travel visits upon every one of us on this planet. At the same time, we must be increasingly mindful of the challenges that poorly planned tourism can have on regions not prepared to handle large numbers of visitors.
And, at the heart of it all is the Destination Marketing Organization, the agency that provides the inspiration and incentive for consumers to choose and consume a community, region or nation.
Sojern's Richard Black penned a great op-ed piece for PhocusWire called a DMO's Guide for Finding the Metrics that Matter.
So worth a read.
I have no idea if this is a URL that the Bismarck-Mandan CVB once held and discarded...but, it's a cautionary tale that should encourage every DMO to camp out on (and never release) any URL that remotely could be associated with their organization or destination.
The Bureau has recently discovered that someone has posted an imposter website (potentially to trick unsophisticated consumers to share personal data) with a URL that certainly looks like it might be theirs. But it isn't.
Hey, I know you're never, ever gonna use that URL you thought was a good idea back in 2003 (but wasn't)...but, do NOT let it slide back into the public domain! If I had a Franklin for every former DMO URL that has been repurposed into some type of foreign click-bate site...well, let's just say I'd have enough money to comfortably knock off for a month in a villa on a hilltop over a picturesque bay in the tropics.
I know it looks like a waste of money to hold 'em. Trust me. It's not.
It's been years since we last spoke...but I never thought that last time would be.
David Burke, the long-time GM of the Breakers Palm Beach died unexpectedly last week. In a world of hospitality professionals who are generally nicer than the general population, David was one of a handful of tourism executives that stood out among a crowded field. I always looked forward to our time together when our careers connected us...and I'll now, once again, not be able to tell someone how much they meant to me.
And to so many others. To whit...this quote from his obit in Smart Meetings:
“The first day on the job here...in your orientation class, first thing is you do a half-day of community service,” he said. “It’s all about ingratiating yourself into the community and doing what’s right. It’s so much fun working for a company that can do the right thing all the time.”
Yeah...we lost a huge heart.
Rest, David. And, we are all better for the way you lived your life.
After Dubrovnik imposed restrictions on cruise lines, the Vice Chair of Royal Caribbean began a dialogue with the city's Mayor and jointly developed a solution to the community's fear of over-tourism. Adam Goldstein offered the story during a panel discussion at the World Travel & Tourism Council Global Summit in April
Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch responded, "I do think it’s an interesting approach to say, 'What do you want? Don’t tell me what you don’t want.' When everybody focuses on what they don’t want, it’s always somebody else’s responsibility. When it’s what I want, it makes me focus."
He went on to say, "The over-tourism report suggests DMOs should be destination management organizations rather than destination marketing organizations. The problem is, we live in a world where it’s actually hard to manage people anymore: You’ve got to inspire them to do the right thing."
Brilliant...and the rest of the panel discussion, moderated by Travel Weekly's Arnie Weissmann, can be found here.
We all have our favorite airlines. Mine is Delta.
It starts with having the most flights out of MSN on the largest planes. That means I get upgraded more often because I fly them the most.
But, it goes beyond that. Delta gate agents are, hands down, less likely to lie to customers when something goes wrong than any other airline in this country. I've only caught them in one lie in the past five years and, though it resulted in me driving home from Atlanta rather than Roanoke (which would have been closer), I get that it was a weird day (the ATC fire in Chicago) and they were probably doing the best they could. Yeah...bless their heart.
But, now comes word that they are ordering a bunch of new jets with a 2x3 configuration to eliminate the number of middle seats on key business-travel routes. Oh, hell yeah. That's like almost affirming that Midwest Express was right.
Wanna double down, Delta? Bring back the Cookie.
LOL.
With our move to the country, we decided to cut the cord. We've ended our subscription to cable TV.
And, we have entered a world we didn't know existed. A world of collusion, where scoring content from a network often requires a cable subscription.
Which was the situation this evening as I sat down to watch the kick-off of the NFL Season with the Hall of Fame Game.
Nyet. The NBC Sports app required a link to my cable provider (I no longer have one). Hulu was also a no go because I apparently didn't have the right plan.
I chuckled and put down the remote.
If I'm willing to watch your content with your commercials...and you block me because I'm not part of your incestuous cabal?
I guess I'll watch the highlights tomorrow on my phone.
Without all those commercials that are so precious to your business plan.
Y'all might want to buy a clue.
While the importance of the Visitor Economy and the work of Destination Marketing Organizations is becoming more and more understood...there are still those among us that haven't a clue. And, when they are also the very people that are elected to ensure the highest possible Quality of Life for residents, it can be a scary combination.
The City of Santa Clara has elected to cancel its contract with the Chamber/CVB at the end of the month, effectively putting 14 employees on waivers.
The City's Plan B? They apparently don't have one.
With hundreds of millions of visitor spending (and hundreds of jobs) on the line, wouldn't you think a City Council would have a plan to replace a DMO before cutting their current one loose? But, because most politicians aren't anything more than part-time amateurs at running cities, this is what you get.
Imagine if an audit came back raising concerns about the Fire Department. Think the Council would shut it down and then go on summer vacation without a plan forward?
Of course not.
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