Schedule

As the way people discover, plan, and experience travel continues to evolve, so does the role of the welcome center. Today's travelers expect personalized experiences, authentic connections, and seamless digital tools alongside meaningful face-to-face interactions. Once viewed primarily as information stops, welcome centers are becoming strategic gateways that shape first impressions, inspire exploration, and support local communities. Join destination leaders for a peer-to-peer discussion on what's next. Together, we'll explore emerging trends, innovative ideas, and practical approaches that can help shape the next generation of welcome centers.

Our goal is simple: Everyone leaves with a fresh perspective, meaningful connections, and at least one practical idea they can take back and apply in their own destination.

In a world overflowing with AI generated information, trusted storytelling has never mattered more. Join us for an inspiring, hands on session with Smithsonian—America’s storyteller—to uncover how authoritative content can elevate your digital campaigns and spark deeper audience engagement. Whether you’re navigating tight budgets or striving to stand out in a crowded landscape, you’ll leave with actionable strategies, fresh ideas, and Smithsonian backed insights to strengthen your brand’s narrative. Following the success of our 250 Places to Celebrate America partnership, we’re offering an exclusive preview of Smithsonian’s new initiative for 2027—Hidden Natural Wonders— and concrete guidance on how to use this idea to amplify your destination’s visibility and impact.

Takeaways: 

• Elevate your narrative with actionable storytelling strategies designed to deepen audience engagement and strengthen the impact of your content.
• Make your brand unforgettable by harnessing the authenticity of your UNESCO sites, historic locations, iconic landmarks, and national parks to stand out in an increasingly crowded content landscape.
• Boost your visibility through proven approaches for structuring, positioning, and distributing stories so they are more likely to be surfaced and amplified among your target audience and summarized by generative AI systems.

As resident sentiment, public scrutiny and political pressure continue to grow, destination organizations can no longer afford to engage communities only during moments of controversy or crisis. Building long-term trust now requires intentional storytelling, stronger local relationships and a clearer connection between tourism and community value. This peer-to-peer roundtable will explore how destination leaders are building resident support over time through local media engagement, civic pride initiatives, internal communications and community-centered strategies — before they need public buy-in most.

Takeaways: 

• Build   Trust Proactively: Explore how destination organizations are building long-term resident trust and community support before challenges arise.
• Strengthen Community Ties: Share approaches for strengthening civic pride, local storytelling and community engagement as part of a broader destination strategy.
• Demonstrate Value: Discuss how organizations are measuring resident sentiment, navigating public scrutiny and demonstrating tourism’s value to local communities.

Visit Lake Charles evolved from a traditional tourism marketer into the strategic marketing and communications arm for Just Imagine SWLA, proving how DMOs can support community-led initiatives without losing focus on visitation, brand, or mission. This session explores how DMOs can responsibly step into deeper community roles when the opportunity aligns.

Takeaways:

• Evaluate community initiatives using a practical decision framework to determine when deeper DMO involvement aligns with mission, brand, and visitation goals—and when to say no. 
• Implement governance and role-definition tools that establish clear boundaries, accountability, and expectations, protecting the DMO’s core   mission while supporting community-led efforts.
• Apply a scalable communications-first framework to support community initiatives through marketing, storytelling, and earned media without absorbing ownership or operational drift.

How do you evolve a legacy brand without losing what makes it iconic—especially when multiple destinations are involved? Using Route 66 as a case study, this session goes beyond campaign execution to explore how Oklahoma is navigating the complexity of modernizing a historic brand across state, city, and smaller destination partners. From aligning 11 smaller destinations around a shared vision (“The 100 Greatest Miles”) to balancing local priorities with statewide strategy, we’ll unpack the real challenges behind collaboration, brand consistency, and decision-making.

Takeaways:

Attendees will walk away with practical insight into how to:

• Align multiple stakeholders around a single brand vision.
• Balance legacy storytelling with modern traveler expectations.
• Manage tradeoffs between local control and regional impact.
• Execute a cohesive strategy across destinations of different sizes.

What does it take to get travelers to invest emotionally in a place— where being a “responsible guest” feels like insider access and naturally the thing to do? This session breaks down Look Out for ME, Maine’s visitor education initiative rooted in Leave No Trace principles and taking care of yourself, while going beyond just nature to being respectful of the culture, communities, people and working landscapes as well – the things that make Maine (or a place?) special. Learn about the evolution of the initiative, outreach to key partners and stakeholders and early campaign successes.

Takeaways:

• Develop a pre-arrival digital and social strategy that educates visitors early, aligning expectations, protecting local assets and reinforcing long-term destination stewardship.
• Strengthen cross-agency and partner collaboration to avoid duplication, amplify aligned initiatives to deliver clear, cohesive sustainability messaging.
• Develop communications plan to engage industry stakeholders. 
• Leverage PR and paid media to extend reach and drive measurable results.

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.

When a destination’s narrative shifts—whether due to a wildfire, a sudden political controversy, or a blow to its public reputation—the first 24 hours are the most critical. In this high-stakes session, leaders from Chicago and Santa Monica pull back the curtain on what it actually takes to move from "crisis mode" to "community-first" action in less than half a day. 

We’ll explore how Chicago launched a massive brand platform in under 12 hours and how Santa Monica balanced resident safety with global destination reputation during a regional emergency. We will discuss the evolution of the PR mandate: the shift from defensive statements to a "trust-first" model that activates residents and partners as primary narrators. Attendees will leave with a readiness playbook designed to build stakeholder trust, maintain transparency, and turn urgent disruptions into enduring platforms for recovery.

Takeaways: 

• Reframing PR as a Leadership Function: Move communications from a "support role" to a strategic driver, equipping teams to align visitor promotion with community priorities in real-time.
• The Stakeholder Trust Architecture: Analyze the engagement tactics that keep local leadership and residents on your side, ensuring the destination emerges stronger and more resilient post-crisis.
• Turning Urgency into Endurance: Learn how to transition a rapid-response campaign into a lasting brand platform (e.g., social, PR, and long-form content) that continues to drive value for years.
• Failure Analysis from the Crisis Vault: A candid review of past "missteps"—from misinformation gaps to misaligned KPIs—and the specific tactical shifts made to build today’s resilient frameworks.

Most travel is driven by an invitation, not advertising. Before a visitor ever steps foot in your destination, your residents have already set the tone. If local perception lags behind reality, your biggest marketing asset—the community—remains untapped. This session explores how Philadelphia and Buffalo moved beyond traditional tourism ads to build "place brands" from the inside out. Using Philadelphia’s "sports-fandom" strategy as a blueprint, we’ll hear how to treat a city like a team to unlock genuine resident advocacy. Then, we’ll dive into the tactical execution from Buffalo’s rebrand, showing how to secure community buy-in through high-visibility, locally rooted activations—from ice sculptures and murals to transit wraps and temporary tattoos. Learn how to transform your residents from skeptics into a mobilized force of brand ambassadors who invite, energize, and advocate for your destination.

Takeaways: 

• Master a practical framework that connects resident pride directly to visitor growth. We’ll show how shifting your focus inward improves the visitor   experience on the ground and turns locals into a high-conversion "invitation engine" that outperforms traditional advertising.
• Learn a repeatable method to uncover your destination’s “shared local truth” — the emotional connector that locals already rally around   (Philadelphia’s is fandom; each destination’s may be something entirely different).
• We'll provide examples of scalable, low-to-mid-cost activation ideas that can be adapted by destinations of varying sizes to build community buy-in and visibility.
• We'll provide guidance on how to track shifts in resident price and downstream performance.

By 2030, accessibility will no longer be a niche consideration—it will be a defining factor in how travelers choose destinations. As the population ages and traveler expectations evolve, destinations must move beyond isolated initiatives and begin embedding accessibility into planning, marketing, visitor experience, and destination development. This interactive session will explore how destination leaders are preparing for this shift and what it means for their organizations today. Through expert insights, peer discussion, and real-world examples, attendees will examine how accessibility influences destination competitiveness, visitor trust, and long-term growth. Participants will leave with practical ideas for advancing accessibility within their own organizations, regardless of budget, staffing, or current level of maturity.

Takeaways: 

•  Understand the demographic and traveler trends driving accessibility as a strategic priority.
• Learn how leading destinations are integrating accessibility into planning, marketing, and visitor     experience.
• Explore practical approaches for advancing accessibility within real-world budget and staffing constraints.
• Identify opportunities to build trust and serve a broader audience without tokenizing accessibility efforts.

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.

Destinations face pressure to justify tourism funding but rely on outdated metrics that miss full community value. The Arizona Office of Tourism shares real-world experience transforming impact into data stories that win support from boards, officials, and residents. Attendees will co-create communication plans for scenarios like overtourism, resident sentiment, or political headwinds—leaving with actionable frameworks to implement immediately in their own communities.

Takeaways: 

• Connect their current strategy to measurable tourism objectives.
• Identify other sources of data to include in their reporting beyond social media impressions and taxes.
• Develop a draft communications plan tailored for different audiences with specific storytelling tactics.

AI has become the loudest word in travel marketing, but underneath the buzz, DMO leaders are wrestling with real questions that rarely get honest answers. What actually changes when a visitor types a question into ChatGPT or Perplexity instead of Google? Does your content structure matter to a language model? Can you influence how AI platforms answer questions about your destination? And is your agency actually equipped to help… or just repackaging old deliverables with an "AI" label?

This roundtable cuts through the hype. Facilitated as an open, practitioner-level discussion, we would tackle the myths DMO marketers hear most — in vendor pitches, conference keynotes, and board rooms — and replace them with ground-level clarity. The goal is for attendees to bring their skepticism, their unanswered questions, and their real experiences and leave with actual clarity. 

Takeaways: 

• A clearer framework for evaluating AI vendor claims.
• Practical content and GEO strategies grounded in what LLMs actually respond to.
• Peer perspectives on what other DMOs are testing, investing in, and walking away from.

Destination marketing is evolving rapidly — but many organizations are still investing time, budget and energy into tactics, channels and reporting practices that no longer drive meaningful value. As traveler behavior, technology and stakeholder expectations continue to shift, destination leaders are being forced to make harder decisions about where to focus, what to prioritize and what to leave behind. 

This peer-to-peer roundtable will bring destination leaders together for a candid discussion on the strategies, metrics and legacy practices that may no longer serve the industry. From outdated reporting habits and overused marketing tactics to channels losing effectiveness and investments that no longer differentiate destinations, attendees will openly discuss what they are rethinking, reducing or walking away from entirely.

Takeaways: 

• Identify outdated marketing tactics, reporting practices and investments that may no longer create meaningful value for destination organizations.
• Explore how destination leaders are reevaluating channels, content strategies and success metrics in response to changing traveler behavior and stakeholder expectations.
• Exchange candid peer-driven Data & Insights on what organizations are cutting, evolving or deprioritizing — and where they are choosing to reinvest instead.

Events are often judged by attendance numbers, but attendance alone doesn’t tell the full story. As destinations face increasing pressure to justify investments, recruit the right opportunities, and demonstrate value to stakeholders, many are asking: Which events create the greatest value? How should success be measured? And what information is needed to make smarter event decisions?

Join this interactive roundtable discussion as we explore how destinations are evaluating event performance, defining event value, and identifying opportunities that align with their goals. Participants will share challenges, best practices, and emerging approaches to event measurement and strategy.