Schedule

In a follow-up to last year's popular session, Amir Eylon will return to the stage and seed the conversation with some timely leisure travel insights and travel trends facing DMO's and challenge the audience to discuss how they have been, are, or can apply these insights into their marketing efforts!

Takeaways: 

• Some quick and actionable insights about   American leisure travelers. 
• Actionable applied ideas from their peers.
• Inspired ideation of solutions   among the roundtables.

DMOs are under pressure to adopt AI, yet many lack a clear path from experimentation to operational impact. This peer-to-peer roundtable grounds the conversation in Visit Mesa’s AI roadmap, including what worked and what did not. Then the session shifts to facilitated discussion so attendees can compare approaches, address stakeholder expectations, connect AI efforts to ROI, and identify realistic next steps they can implement immediately.

Takeaways: 

• Evaluate where your DMO is on the AI adoption spectrum.
• Prioritize AI efforts based on organizational readiness, value, and capacity.
• Identify concrete next steps to advance AI adoption responsibly within your organization.

If your community is asking, “Why are we doing another tourism plan?” or “Is this just going to collect dust?”, then it’s time to reset the conversation. Creating the plan matters, but implementation is what actually drives change. This roundtable session is infused with a panel to help participants focus on how to move beyond the document and use the strategic plan as a practical, everyday tool to align partners, guide decisions and actually get s**t done.

Takeaways:

• Apply best practices to build implementation steps into the strategic planning process.
• Institute steps to hold strategic planners, the destination organization, and community stakeholders accountable for delivering impactful results.
• Establish communication and follow-up to report success stories and challenges as part of the effort to strengthen community involvement and support.