LA is the place to chase your dreams. When I lived there, I realized some of my dreams, including some I didn’t know I had, like working in destination marketing at Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board. I’m hoping as we join industry colleagues in person for ESTO in LA after the challenges of this past year, the dreams we all have for a quick and sustained recovery for each of our destinations will come true. Here are the top 10 reasons this year’s ESTO is a can’t-miss event for destination marketing professionals.

In February the ESTO planning team took up the challenge of planning a conference about destination marketing in a cloud of uncertainty about travel. No small feat.

Imagine building two model bridges with popsicle sticks: the first bridge you’ve glued together at every joint, but for the second bridge, you’ve notched the ends of the sticks and lashed the joints together with rubber bands. Now imagine grasping the ends of these bridges and twisting to simulate an earthquake. Which one breaks first? Resilience is the second bridge: strength through flexibility.

Today, we share the decision that ESTO 2020 is cancelled, a difficult but necessary response to the coronavirus pandemic. While we had greatly looked forward to being together in Grand Rapids, we are unable to proceed with ESTO in compliance with the guidance of Michigan public health authorities prohibiting large public gatherings.

On January 14, 2020, Google announced that they plan to phase out support for the third-party cookie in Chrome over the next two years — and subsequently sent the digital marketing industry into a tailspin.

Since then, our industry has systematically gone through the Five Stages of Grief; it started with denial, moved to anger, then there was bargaining, many were depressed and now, finally, we’ve moved to acceptance. While we’ve begun to accept our cookie-less, third-party future, what that future looks like is still undefined.  

Here are three things to know now: