On behalf of the entire ESTO team and our hosts, the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A.

After a hiatus last year, the ESTO Awards are BACK! This year’s awards program will honor two years’ worth of destination marketing excellence displayed in 2019 and 2020 and will celebrate destination marketers who met these challenges head-on with some of the most innovative and creative campaigns ever created.

This year's ESTO would not have been possible without the support and engagement of our 2021 Planning Committee. 

CO-CHAIRS

Year after year, ESTO attendees enjoy kicking off ESTO activities by giving back to the communities we visit.  

Hosted by Cvent, Virtual ESTO will grant attendees access to unique, high-quality educational content from the office, local coffee shop or the comfort of your own home. 

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: