Curated Insights for Destination Marketers, by a Destination Marketer
December 2024 Edition
Welcome to the first edition of my new monthly mailer series, Bridges to Destinations!
Drawing on more than 9 years of experience in destination marketing – presenting to Tourist Development Councils, navigating the intricacies of government processes, and finding creative solutions along the way—I’ve had my fair share of challenges and triumphs that continue to fuel my passion for this industry.
My goal is to bring value to your inbox by diving into hot tourism topics, sharing innovative ideas, asking thought-provoking questions, and celebrating the incredible success stories of DMOs.
Without further ado, let’s dive in and get inspired—let’s gooooooo!
Back in 2021, I was proud to help bring the first-ever original scripted TV series for a DMO to life on Amazon Prime. In what was a joint effort between Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, Visit Florida and Odyssey Studios, “Life’s Rewards” used St. Pete/Clearwater as the backdrop to a TV show.
It was a thrilling project. But as someone who loves to measure direct consumer actions for every piece of marketing, I needed more than just X millions of minutes watched. To no avail, I searched high and low for someone to help us measure impact for bookings into the destination.
What I sought at that point was recently accomplished with an exciting project Adara piloted with Visit Milwaukee CMO, Josh Albrecht.
This past year, Milwaukee had “Top Chef” filmed locally and hosted the Republican National Convention, a nationally televised event. Josh, a lot like me, wanted to know who from the audiences watching on TV would wind up staying in a hotel in Milwaukee. Because there’s always a catchy new term, it’s called “Set Jetting.”
In partnership with Samba TV, a multi-source television panel that is 100 times larger than legacy measurement systems, Adara was able to measure more than $1.5M in hotel revenue from those who watched “Top Chef.” Talk about ROI!
For a long time, people have known that film and TV motivate people to travel, but the definitive actions as measured into hotel bookings have been elusive. Think about the possibilities here?! Pro sports team sponsorships, events, film incentives… the list goes on!
Here’s a link to the presentation Josh and Taylor McGurk from our Adara team recently shared at the Destinations Wisconsin Fall Tourism Conference.
Have you ever wanted to create a product, land a new flight or host an event to fill a need in the destination?! Personally, I think this is something DMOs should do more of—finding ways to create demand where it doesn’t exist. You can’t just market your way out of everything.
But I get it. Creating something isn’t easy. Landing that new flight takes a lot of time and money.
I was inspired recently by a conversation with Domenic Bravo, President & CEO of Visit Cheyenne. You can’t miss Bravo at industry events. He’s the guy with the cowboy hat and, very likely, Cheyenne-branded gear. Bravo and the team in Cheyenne created an event “Hell on Wheels” in the thick of the pandemic in 2020. (Yes, you read that correctly…) And it’s a raging success today. But it didn’t stop there. Bravo and the team continue to find ways to be inventive to help with community needs and then find private partners to transition them to for long-term success and sustainability.
The full story has been documented by a newly established Destinations International and Tempest effort dubbed “The Destination Effect, a website that’s striving to educate elected officials, policymakers, media, the public and more on the power of destinations organizations.
I love building a marketing strategy and bringing that to life like all destination marketers, but increasing demand through product development is invaluable.
What do Rockford, IL; Minot-Bismarck-Dickinson, ND; Dayton, OH; and Cheyenne, WY all have in common?! All four are up more than 50% year-over-year in hotel bookings, according to Adara’s ecosystem data.
You can read more about where, when and how the world is traveling on World on Holiday.
Did you know you could take a PDF and make it into a podcast?! For free! Google’s NotebookLM can turn that long board report into your next commuting audio journey. Put that puppy on 1.5x speed and you’ll be able to hammer out PDF consumption like never before.
That’s a wrap for this month’s Bridges to Destinations! I hope you found some fresh ideas, useful insights, and a bit of inspiration to fuel your destination marketing efforts.
If you enjoyed this and want to share it with someone else, share this Subscribe link. Let’s keep building bridges to bigger, better destinations—together!
Wishing you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
See you in 2025.
Regards,
Leroy Bridges