ESTO delivers bold content, dynamic learning formats and opportunities to connect and equip destination marketing leaders with insights they can immediately put into action.
Explore the full schedule to start planning your experience at ESTO.
As organic reach declines and paid social grows, destinations must rethink engagement. In 2024, Visit Nebraska launched a community-first model around its Nebraska Passport program. What began as an experiment is now a statewide group with thousands of members, daily user posts and tens of thousands reached—without paid promotion. Public groups, not pages, are the future.
Destinations can extend their storytelling beyond traditional tourism channels by embedding themselves into culture. This session walks through how Visit Savannah partnered with LoveShackFancy and Saks Fifth Avenue to let the destination live naturally inside a luxury retail and fashion brand's world — generating earned media, cultural relevance, and measurable results without leading with tourism messaging. The takeaway isn't the partner. It's the strategic approach, and how destinations of any size can apply it.
Whether you’re a small town or sprawling metro, most destinations have some connection to a celebrity. During this panel discussion, you’ll hear recent case studies of how they leveraged big names to drive brand awareness and tourism. From Columbus’ “Get Goosebumps in Columbus” campaign, which celebrated being the hometown of “Goosebumps” author R.L. Stine, to other destinations across the country, you’ll learn how they made connections and created events that drove visitation.
As AI reshapes how travelers discover destinations, Visit Milwaukee chose innovation rooted in authenticity. This session shares how we launched Ask LeRoy, an AI-powered AR guide featuring Hall of Famer LeRoy Butler, while using AI to enhance partner listings and pairing it with human-led storytelling. The result: a 10% YOY increase in web traffic in 2025, bucking national trends.