Schedule

Destinations often look only to each other for inspiration, leading to similar strategies and diminishing impact. This session explores how high-performing brands outside tourism—such as retail, real estate, ecommerce, autonomous vehicles, and higher education—drive desire, trust, and conversion, featuring insights from industry experts and a destination applying these ideas. Attendees will learn how to adapt proven strategies to elevate destination marketing in scalable, practical ways.

Join Expedia Group Advertising to discover what resonates most with today’s travelers. Drawing on the Science of Wanderlust research, you’ll see how partners are creating content that inspires, builds trust, and drives bookings - from short-form videos to inclusive and authentic storytelling. Learn actionable strategies for leveraging AI, media networks, and creative partnerships to deliver measurable results across the entire traveler journey.

Destination organizations face rising scrutiny, shifting politics and growing resident expectations. This session reframes PR as a leadership function, equipping teams to build stakeholder trust, align visitor promotion with community priorities and respond confidently to disruption. Attendees will leave with practical frameworks to strengthen credibility, readiness and long-term relevance regardless of destination size.

Travel is constantly evolving & understanding where it’s headed requires more than surface level signals. We’ll introduce Tripadvisor Trendcast 2026, our latest look at the forces shaping how & why people travel. Featuring 10 emerging trends, this report draws on decades of traveler insight to spotlight what’s gaining momentum, what’s changing & what will influence travel decisions. We’ll break down each trend, why it matters now & how it’s already showing up in real travel experiences.

Do your DMO and state have a hard time winning together? Do you need to galvanize stakeholders behind you? Have you met the power of reality TV? What started with hope and a creative pitch turned into a powerful integrated marketing and PR campaign when we hosted Top Chef. This case study will spur tactical ideas and spew food puns. Learn how reach, impressions and heads in beds led to a bipartisan film tax credit. Get inspired to turn TV clicks into bookable trips.

The transition from the Google digital ecosystem to Gen AI is well underway, and marketers need to adapt to rapidly changing consumer behavior. Gain insights from iolite group's State of AI study focused entirely on how consumers use gen AI for travel - what situations they use it for, what they like/dislike about it, and what all this means for destination marketers.

Destination marketing funnels haven’t disappeared...they’ve gone invisible. AI, algorithmic feeds, and zero-click discovery are shaping travel decisions long before (or if ever) websites or campaigns are engaged. This session reframes how destinations understand discovery, influence, and demand in a system-driven world, offering practical frameworks to adapt strategy, measurement, and content for what travelers actually experience today.

Many policymakers view tourism marketing claims with skepticism, shaped by inconsistent metrics and inflated success stories. This trust gap makes it harder for destinations to secure funding and long-term support. This session explores why the gap exists and how destinations can close it through transparency, independent data, and economic grounding—equipping attendees to communicate results in policy-relevant language and rebuild credibility with decision-makers.