August 28, 2024 • 14 mins
In this episode, we provide a concise recap of ESTO 2024, an Educational Seminar for Tourism Organizations held in Columbus, Ohio. Joined by Chief Creative Officer Abbey Reifsnyder and Senior Account Executive Kerri Keefer, we attended various informative sessions and panels. Key topics included branding strategies emphasizing daring and audience-centered approaches, advocacy for travel and tourism, workforce development, and rethinking KPIs and measurement in tourism. The discussion also highlights the growing importance of short-form video content and authenticity in social media and marketing strategies. For more details, check out our 'Happy Hour Highlights' on our social channels.
00:00 Introduction and Overview
00:42 What is ESTO?
01:58 Key Takeaways from ESTO 2024
03:23 Branding Insights
04:47 Advocacy Strategies
07:38 Workforce Development
08:41 KPIs and Measurement
10:22 Social Media Metrics
12:57 The Importance of Authenticity
13:44 Conclusion and Next Steps
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pat (00:12):
Hey everybody.
Today's episode is going to be alittle bit different.
It's gonna be short and sweet,and this is gonna be a recap of
ESTO 2024, which recently hadthe opportunity to attend in
Columbus, Ohio.
I was joined by our ChiefCreative Officer, Abby
Riefsnyder, and our SeniorAccount Executive and Resident
(00:35):
Food Critic, Kerry Kiefer.
And all three of us attendedsome different presentations and
panels at the event.
And if you're unfamiliar withESTO, it stands for Educational
Seminar for TourismOrganizations.
This is put on by the U.
S.
Travel Association.
Every year, I have had theopportunity throughout the years
to attend a number of these, andI have always walked away
(01:00):
feeling like these areincredibly valuable conferences.
Many times you walk out of aconference and you're like,
okay, that's interesting.
But give me somethingactionable.
Give me some real insights andsome genuine takeaways.
And Esto delivers on that.
And, and it has for each onethat I've attended.
And anytime also that I go to anevent like this.
(01:24):
I'm seeking to learn, obviously,connect with folks and just have
conversations about challengesand so forth, and really just
listening and learning.
But it's also really interestingto feel validation when you hear
other people talking about thethings that you, I don't mean
(01:44):
myself, but us as anorganization and our
partnerships and so forth,things that We are thinking
about or already doing that arebeing discussed at conferences
like this.
So again, Esto 2024 was inColumbus.
I'm just going to run through acouple things in my notes.
This is going to be probably allover the place.
If you know me, that's nothingnew to you, but I literally, I'm
(02:08):
just going to run through someof the notes from some of the
things that Abby, Carrie andmyself pulled out from some of
the sessions that we went to.
Also, if you are interested, wedid.
Do something new and differentand we recorded some videos
while we were there.
We call these happy hourhighlights.
We had a lot of fun with it andit was literally just each of us
(02:29):
kind of sharing some of thetakeaways.
If you are interested in viewingthat, you can go to our Facebook
page.
You can go to Instagram that isslash digital relativity on the
platforms and you can find somereels and some videos.
That are going to have a littlebit more information and a
little, maybe a little moredetail of what I'm going to
share with you.
Cause I just want to talk abouta couple of key points.
(02:51):
First of all, as I said, Estos,just, it's just a really
fantastic event and people fromall across the United States and
the globe, frankly, um, to showup.
And it's a really.
Welcoming traveling tourismpeople were the fun and nice
people, but it's just reallyalways a great time to connect
with the people that you know,and yet you work with, but also
(03:15):
meeting new people and justlearning and sharing information
about the challenges that we allface in the travel and tourism
space.
And in my world in particular,in the marketing side of things,
a couple of things to talkabout, branding was talked about
in a number of differentsessions, obviously, it's always
an interesting topic when you goto these, but I was really
(03:37):
excited to listen to some ofthese sessions and some of the
ideas about how people areapproaching branding and
shifting some of the mindset anda key word that I heard numerous
times.
Was daring, and that reallyresonates with me as that is a
(03:58):
core tenant of digitalrelativity is to be daring, be
willing to put your neck outthere, take calculated risks.
I'm not suggesting that we'redoing silly things, but again,
being daring with your branding,your strategies and taking bold
and unconventional steps and howyou present you and your
(04:20):
destination.
And one of the other pieces,too, was the audience centered
branding.
And that is just not necessarilyshifting your branding for each
little thing, but rather justmaking sure that your brand and
your branding and your messagingresonates with each of the
different audiences that you'retrying to reach, instead of that
(04:43):
just across the board,homogenous approach.
I also attended a session onadvocacy that I was.
really excited about, and it'ssomething that we as an
organization of digitalrelativity have been
strategizing on ways that we canhelp our partners with their
efforts to help, just helppeople understand the value of
(05:07):
travel and tourism.
So this particular sessionfocused Largely on building,
maintaining relationships withelected officials all the way up
the chain.
We see a lot of folks dealingwith their local elected
officials and just trying tohelp people understand, again,
the value of travel and tourism.
(05:29):
One of the key takeaways, itreally just resonated with me
because whenever we see thesetypes of Scenarios, let's just
use as an example, a localelected official is new, comes
in, does not quite fullyunderstand one, the value of
travel and tourism, but two, thereasoning behind where some of
(05:54):
the tax dollars flow to DMOs andCDBs and things of that nature.
So it's not a position ofmalice, spite, or whatever
nefarious word you'd like touse.
But there's often tension therebetween the leaders in travel
and tourism.
(06:14):
And again, I'm going to use thisexample of local elected
officials and there was a quoteand I don't have it verbatim,
but I'm going to paraphrase herefor you is that us as travel and
tourism professionals, when wefind ourselves in those
positions, instead of, you know,Becoming defensive or becoming
(06:37):
offensive in the sense of reallygetting in there and just being
frustrated and not having a truestrategy behind how you're going
to communicate your ideas.
But again, come back to thequote was start where they are,
okay, so trying to reallyunderstand what their viewpoint
is and where they are hoping tofind themselves in the future
(07:02):
and meeting them in the middlethere.
And just one of the other keypoints to me was just
authenticity in your advocacyefforts.
And if you are dealing with.
Elected officials, don't waituntil you need their assistance
to reach out, start buildingthose relationships and become a
(07:24):
resource to them and helpingthem understand again the value
and the importance of travel andtourism.
Moving right along.
There was a number ofdiscussions about workforce
development and West Virginia'svery own secretary, Chelsea Ruby
(07:46):
was part of a session on tourismworkforce development.
This is something that WestVirginia is absolutely leading.
And, and there was just somereally great information about
how to target younger audiencesto get them involved in
attracting them for careers intravel and tourism hospitality.
(08:08):
I'd really love to hear from youif you're working on things
related to this.
I know that it's an issue that Ihear people discuss quite often
is that you have all thesetravel and tourism
opportunities, but reallystruggling to find.
Uh, that workforce to help todeliver that product.
I know that this is going to bean ongoing topic of discussion.
(08:29):
And again, if you happen to haveany ideas or thoughts, things
that you're doing, I'd reallylove to hear what you're working
on.
Moving right along.
There was a number of differentsessions and just a general
topic about KPIs and measurementand tourism.
And I was pretty fired up to seethis because I.
(08:53):
I personally get a littlefrustrated in the ways that we
look at things simply because ofhow we have always looked at
them or how we have alwaysreported out to our boards and
our stakeholders.
And the truth is, There has beenso much change in measurement
(09:14):
and data and analytics and notonly the things that we have
visibility into, but the thingsthat we no longer have
visibility into.
Or, because of the shift inmedia consumption, the way that
people are, you know, spendingtheir time online, does a
website visit have the samevalue?
(09:36):
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
And it's time that we starthaving some really difficult
decisions and folks are doingthis already and it's really
exciting and fun.
And in fact, I'm bragging on myhome state here in West
Virginia, Tim Brady from theCharleston Convention of
Visitors Bureau led off a panelon rethinking KPIs and just
(09:57):
really dropped a bomb and justsaying, don't show me economic
impact numbers.
Okay.
He's got a really interestingviewpoint on it and it's, that
is a starting point.
For all of us to begin trulyrethinking how we measure, how
we report, and what is genuinelyimportant in the work that we
(10:21):
do.
One of the other conversationsthat I sat in on, again, coming
back to this measurement piecewas, A discussion about social
media.
And in fact, the leader from theWendy's social team was there
and, and forgive me, her nameescapes me at the moment.
I'm just riffing off of somenotes here, but there was a
discussion in that particularpanel about social media
(10:45):
metrics.
It's like, are we concernedabout likes and impressions or
saves and shares?
Some really interesting thingsto be thinking about there.
And, let's see, there's oneother piece.
Oh, how valuable is a websitevisit today?
Is significantly different withthe, I'm going to call the
(11:09):
diversification.
Of social, but the advent of AIand AI generated descriptions
and things like that, thatyou're now starting to see in
Google thinking about short formvideo content as part of your
overall strategies.
And right.
You may be sitting therethinking, Oh, that's really
(11:31):
innovative.
Short form video.
This is not some new topic, butagain, coming back to what the
data is telling us, the shiftsthat are occurring, this one
particular statistic reallystood out to me.
Young travelers are using TikTokand Instagram for search.
(11:52):
40 percent of them are favoringthese platforms over Google.
So they're not going to be doinga traditional Google search of
where should I go this weekend,stupid things like that.
They're going in and they'relooking at things that TikTok
and Instagram, they're nevergoing to visit your website.
(12:12):
They're not going to, and foreverybody that's worried about
my organic search traffic isdropping.
It's going to, it is going to,is it still important?
Yes, absolutely.
It is.
And you should continue toinvest in that, but it's time
that we start looking at thingsdifferently and embracing some
(12:33):
of these new approaches.
Again, short form video content,getting it out there.
And again, coming back to thissession with Wendy's was don't
be afraid.
To make a mistake, it's going tohappen, but trying to keep
myself from going off topicagain here, but short form video
content, start paying attentionto it, another recurring theme.
(12:57):
And this one is, I don't know,funny, maybe in a way that
authenticity is back, right?
It's been a while since folkshave really been talking about
quote unquote authenticity,because it just seems like a
given.
Authenticity beyond the brand isone of the things that I think
(13:17):
is important to keep in mindhere, the concept that
authenticity is not just aboutyour brand identity, but it's
about being true to theaudience's expectations of you
being true to who you are,instead of embellishing, for
example, and Reflecting on thechallenge of maintaining
(13:38):
authenticity across thedifferent segments of your
audience is really important.
I think that's pretty much goingto wrap up my wrap up of ESTO
2024.
Again, U.
S.
Travel Association puts thisevent on every year.
Next year it will be in Phoenix,Arizona.
(13:58):
So if you haven't attended,definitely check that out.
Also, just once again, you canfind our videos, the happy hour
hangout.
That's Kerry, Abby, and myselfjust talking about things from
each day.
If you go to our social channelsslash digital relativity, look
under the videos, the reels, youwill find those there.
If you happen to have been thereat ESTO and you've got some
(14:20):
thoughts, you've got somequestions, um, I'd really love
to hear what your takeawayswere.
Feel free to text 209 300 5017.
That's 209 300 5017.
Hey everybody.
Today's episode is going to be alittle bit different.
It's gonna be short and sweet,and this is gonna be a recap of
ESTO 2024, which recently hadthe opportunity to attend in
Columbus, Ohio.
I was joined by our ChiefCreative Officer, Abby
Riefsnyder, and our SeniorAccount Executive and Resident
(00:35):
Food Critic, Kerry Kiefer.
And all three of us attendedsome different presentations and
panels at the event.
And if you're unfamiliar withESTO, it stands for Educational
Seminar for TourismOrganizations.
This is put on by the U.
S.
Travel Association.
Every year, I have had theopportunity throughout the years
to attend a number of these, andI have always walked away
(01:00):
feeling like these areincredibly valuable conferences.
Many times you walk out of aconference and you're like,
okay, that's interesting.
But give me somethingactionable.
Give me some real insights andsome genuine takeaways.
And Esto delivers on that.
And, and it has for each onethat I've attended.
And anytime also that I go to anevent like this.
(01:24):
I'm seeking to learn, obviously,connect with folks and just have
conversations about challengesand so forth, and really just
listening and learning.
But it's also really interestingto feel validation when you hear
other people talking about thethings that you, I don't mean
(01:44):
myself, but us as anorganization and our
partnerships and so forth,things that We are thinking
about or already doing that arebeing discussed at conferences
like this.
So again, Esto 2024 was inColumbus.
I'm just going to run through acouple things in my notes.
This is going to be probably allover the place.
If you know me, that's nothingnew to you, but I literally, I'm
(02:08):
just going to run through someof the notes from some of the
things that Abby, Carrie andmyself pulled out from some of
the sessions that we went to.
Also, if you are interested, wedid.
Do something new and differentand we recorded some videos
while we were there.
We call these happy hourhighlights.
We had a lot of fun with it andit was literally just each of us
(02:29):
kind of sharing some of thetakeaways.
If you are interested in viewingthat, you can go to our Facebook
page.
You can go to Instagram that isslash digital relativity on the
platforms and you can find somereels and some videos.
That are going to have a littlebit more information and a
little, maybe a little moredetail of what I'm going to
share with you.
Cause I just want to talk abouta couple of key points.
(02:51):
First of all, as I said, Estos,just, it's just a really
fantastic event and people fromall across the United States and
the globe, frankly, um, to showup.
And it's a really.
Welcoming traveling tourismpeople were the fun and nice
people, but it's just reallyalways a great time to connect
with the people that you know,and yet you work with, but also
(03:15):
meeting new people and justlearning and sharing information
about the challenges that we allface in the travel and tourism
space.
And in my world in particular,in the marketing side of things,
a couple of things to talkabout, branding was talked about
in a number of differentsessions, obviously, it's always
an interesting topic when you goto these, but I was really
(03:37):
excited to listen to some ofthese sessions and some of the
ideas about how people areapproaching branding and
shifting some of the mindset anda key word that I heard numerous
times.
Was daring, and that reallyresonates with me as that is a
(03:58):
core tenant of digitalrelativity is to be daring, be
willing to put your neck outthere, take calculated risks.
I'm not suggesting that we'redoing silly things, but again,
being daring with your branding,your strategies and taking bold
and unconventional steps and howyou present you and your
(04:20):
destination.
And one of the other pieces,too, was the audience centered
branding.
And that is just not necessarilyshifting your branding for each
little thing, but rather justmaking sure that your brand and
your branding and your messagingresonates with each of the
different audiences that you'retrying to reach, instead of that
(04:43):
just across the board,homogenous approach.
I also attended a session onadvocacy that I was.
really excited about, and it'ssomething that we as an
organization of digitalrelativity have been
strategizing on ways that we canhelp our partners with their
efforts to help, just helppeople understand the value of
(05:07):
travel and tourism.
So this particular sessionfocused Largely on building,
maintaining relationships withelected officials all the way up
the chain.
We see a lot of folks dealingwith their local elected
officials and just trying tohelp people understand, again,
the value of travel and tourism.
(05:29):
One of the key takeaways, itreally just resonated with me
because whenever we see thesetypes of Scenarios, let's just
use as an example, a localelected official is new, comes
in, does not quite fullyunderstand one, the value of
travel and tourism, but two, thereasoning behind where some of
(05:54):
the tax dollars flow to DMOs andCDBs and things of that nature.
So it's not a position ofmalice, spite, or whatever
nefarious word you'd like touse.
But there's often tension therebetween the leaders in travel
and tourism.
(06:14):
And again, I'm going to use thisexample of local elected
officials and there was a quoteand I don't have it verbatim,
but I'm going to paraphrase herefor you is that us as travel and
tourism professionals, when wefind ourselves in those
positions, instead of, you know,Becoming defensive or becoming
(06:37):
offensive in the sense of reallygetting in there and just being
frustrated and not having a truestrategy behind how you're going
to communicate your ideas.
But again, come back to thequote was start where they are,
okay, so trying to reallyunderstand what their viewpoint
is and where they are hoping tofind themselves in the future
(07:02):
and meeting them in the middlethere.
And just one of the other keypoints to me was just
authenticity in your advocacyefforts.
And if you are dealing with.
Elected officials, don't waituntil you need their assistance
to reach out, start buildingthose relationships and become a
(07:24):
resource to them and helpingthem understand again the value
and the importance of travel andtourism.
Moving right along.
There was a number ofdiscussions about workforce
development and West Virginia'svery own secretary, Chelsea Ruby
(07:46):
was part of a session on tourismworkforce development.
This is something that WestVirginia is absolutely leading.
And, and there was just somereally great information about
how to target younger audiencesto get them involved in
attracting them for careers intravel and tourism hospitality.
(08:08):
I'd really love to hear from youif you're working on things
related to this.
I know that it's an issue that Ihear people discuss quite often
is that you have all thesetravel and tourism
opportunities, but reallystruggling to find.
Uh, that workforce to help todeliver that product.
I know that this is going to bean ongoing topic of discussion.
(08:29):
And again, if you happen to haveany ideas or thoughts, things
that you're doing, I'd reallylove to hear what you're working
on.
Moving right along.
There was a number of differentsessions and just a general
topic about KPIs and measurementand tourism.
And I was pretty fired up to seethis because I.
(08:53):
I personally get a littlefrustrated in the ways that we
look at things simply because ofhow we have always looked at
them or how we have alwaysreported out to our boards and
our stakeholders.
And the truth is, There has beenso much change in measurement
(09:14):
and data and analytics and notonly the things that we have
visibility into, but the thingsthat we no longer have
visibility into.
Or, because of the shift inmedia consumption, the way that
people are, you know, spendingtheir time online, does a
website visit have the samevalue?
(09:36):
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
And it's time that we starthaving some really difficult
decisions and folks are doingthis already and it's really
exciting and fun.
And in fact, I'm bragging on myhome state here in West
Virginia, Tim Brady from theCharleston Convention of
Visitors Bureau led off a panelon rethinking KPIs and just
(09:57):
really dropped a bomb and justsaying, don't show me economic
impact numbers.
Okay.
He's got a really interestingviewpoint on it and it's, that
is a starting point.
For all of us to begin trulyrethinking how we measure, how
we report, and what is genuinelyimportant in the work that we
(10:21):
do.
One of the other conversationsthat I sat in on, again, coming
back to this measurement piecewas, A discussion about social
media.
And in fact, the leader from theWendy's social team was there
and, and forgive me, her nameescapes me at the moment.
I'm just riffing off of somenotes here, but there was a
discussion in that particularpanel about social media
(10:45):
metrics.
It's like, are we concernedabout likes and impressions or
saves and shares?
Some really interesting thingsto be thinking about there.
And, let's see, there's oneother piece.
Oh, how valuable is a websitevisit today?
Is significantly different withthe, I'm going to call the
(11:09):
diversification.
Of social, but the advent of AIand AI generated descriptions
and things like that, thatyou're now starting to see in
Google thinking about short formvideo content as part of your
overall strategies.
And right.
You may be sitting therethinking, Oh, that's really
(11:31):
innovative.
Short form video.
This is not some new topic, butagain, coming back to what the
data is telling us, the shiftsthat are occurring, this one
particular statistic reallystood out to me.
Young travelers are using TikTokand Instagram for search.
(11:52):
40 percent of them are favoringthese platforms over Google.
So they're not going to be doinga traditional Google search of
where should I go this weekend,stupid things like that.
They're going in and they'relooking at things that TikTok
and Instagram, they're nevergoing to visit your website.
(12:12):
They're not going to, and foreverybody that's worried about
my organic search traffic isdropping.
It's going to, it is going to,is it still important?
Yes, absolutely.
It is.
And you should continue toinvest in that, but it's time
that we start looking at thingsdifferently and embracing some
(12:33):
of these new approaches.
Again, short form video content,getting it out there.
And again, coming back to thissession with Wendy's was don't
be afraid.
To make a mistake, it's going tohappen, but trying to keep
myself from going off topicagain here, but short form video
content, start paying attentionto it, another recurring theme.
(12:57):
And this one is, I don't know,funny, maybe in a way that
authenticity is back, right?
It's been a while since folkshave really been talking about
quote unquote authenticity,because it just seems like a
given.
Authenticity beyond the brand isone of the things that I think
(13:17):
is important to keep in mindhere, the concept that
authenticity is not just aboutyour brand identity, but it's
about being true to theaudience's expectations of you
being true to who you are,instead of embellishing, for
example, and Reflecting on thechallenge of maintaining
(13:38):
authenticity across thedifferent segments of your
audience is really important.
I think that's pretty much goingto wrap up my wrap up of ESTO
2024.
Again, U.
S.
Travel Association puts thisevent on every year.
Next year it will be in Phoenix,Arizona.
(13:58):
So if you haven't attended,definitely check that out.
Also, just once again, you canfind our videos, the happy hour
hangout.
That's Kerry, Abby, and myselfjust talking about things from
each day.
If you go to our social channelsslash digital relativity, look
under the videos, the reels, youwill find those there.
If you happen to have been thereat ESTO and you've got some
(14:20):
thoughts, you've got somequestions, um, I'd really love
to hear what your takeawayswere.
Feel free to text 209 300 5017.
That's 209 300 5017.
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