Destination Discourse
Destination Discourse is the essential podcast for DMOs and travel industry professionals who want to stay ahead in destination marketing, stewardship, and management. Hosted by industry experts Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker, each episode delves into the key issues and trends shaping the future of tourism. From cutting-edge innovations to the complex challenges of destination management, we offer thought-provoking insights, honest debates, and practical takeaways. Part love letter to the industry, part therapy session, and part user manual, Destination Discourse is your trusted source for real talk and expert advice. Join us to explore inspiring campaigns, hear from leading voices, and gain the insights you need to elevate your destination strategies.
Episodes
Every DMO generates a constant stream of intelligence - agency reports, meeting transcripts, sales calls, partner conversations - and most of it ends up trapped in someone's inbox or a folder nobody can find. What if all of it fed one central brain?
Janette Roush of Brand USA returns (jingle included) to explain the "hive mind" concept, inspired by Y Combinator's AI-first restructuring, where every input flows to one place and...
Two years, 100 episodes, and zero preparation. In the first-ever live edition of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker take audience questions in real time and put their own positions on trial.
Adam explains why he moved from championing owned media to arguing that earned media now carries the most weight, because answer engines value third-party conversation above everything else. Stuart argues DMOs should focu...
Destinations International's 2025 Destination Next study says DMOs should stop just promoting the visitor experience and start owning it. Seth Lieber, founder of Seth Lieber Creative and a former DMO and theater professional, joins Stuart and Adam to make that case - using an extended theater metaphor where the destination is a production and someone has to direct it.
Stuart and Adam push back. If the DMO is expected to direct...
A city council in Georgia just replaced a high-performing DMO with a firm that faked its client list - and barely anyone with standing pushed back. Returning guest Bill Geist (Board Leadership for Destinations, making his 3rd appearance on DD) joins Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker to unpack what actually happened in College Park, GA, and why it's a warning sign for every DMO watching its funding get more precarious. A recent Li...
Most DMOs still ask how to get outsiders to notice their destination. Josh Albrecht, CMO of VISIT Milwaukee, argues that's the wrong question - a DMO's real job is to export culture until the destination becomes part of someone's identity, the way his dad stayed loyal to Coke even when Coke wasn't on the menu.
Josh walks through how Milwaukee tested that thesis: an Adidas sneaker collab that sold out online in 20 minutes (75% ...
Stuart and Adam open with Dubai's viral resident-referral campaign - turning locals into paid travel advocates - before returning Destie Dan Janes (KHM Agency) lays out his thesis: DMO boards have never been more anxious about their budgets, right as the fundamentals of travel demand have never looked stronger.
Dan explains why travel spending is economically inelastic, why an AI-driven "vacation dividend" is coming, and why t...
Every DMO panel is a highlight reel - so why does no one ever mention what didn't work? Returning guest Dan Gibson (Visit McMinnville) joins Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker to make the case that destination marketing's biggest blind spot isn't failure - it's the refusal to talk about it.
They dig into how vanity metrics let DMOs claim success on their own terms, why agencies get punished the moment a campaign underperforms (even...
Every vendor in the industry suddenly has an "AI visibility score" to sell you. Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker dig into whether GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is real measurement or an expensive mirage, joined by repeat guest Emily Zertuche, CDME, founder of Zertura (formerly Visit Corpus Christi), in her first episode as a vendor.
The trio unpacks a Fast Company piece questioning whether GEO is real. Emily explains why m...
Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker step outside destination marketing to spot the trends reshaping consumer attention right now - and don't even agree on which ones matter most.
Adam opens with Reddit, still one of the most under-used channels in marketing. He breaks down how a fitness app built a 16,000-person community by posting like a real Redditor instead of an advertiser, plus stats on how much Reddit shapes purchase decision...
In this episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker recap Adam's latest CMO Jam - a live, candid roundtable with six DMO marketing leaders - and dig into the ideas that stuck.
The biggest one: panelist Christian Mingle pushed back on the word "relevance," calling it table stakes - do people know we exist? He argued DMOs should chase significance instead: do we actually move the needle for our destination? T...
AI is already cutting DMOs out of the trip-planning conversation - and Will Wright (Destination Core) thinks most destination websites are wasting the one asset that could save them: real local knowledge.
Will's thesis: DMOs are sitting on one of the most powerful editorial assets in travel - trusted, local, authentic knowledge - but keep acting like paid listing sites instead of genuine local experts. His fix is a layered app...
In this episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker tackle a question most DMOs would rather avoid: why should AI ever trust your content over anyone else's? Stuart's thesis - DMOs have grown addicted to equitable treatment of every stakeholder, from alphabetized hotel lists to identical exposure for every attraction, even when real-world demand isn't equal.
The conversation opens with Stu's News: Meta's ne...
Dan Flores, Head of Tourism at Satisfi Labs, joins Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker with an uncomfortable premise: most DMOs are still treating AI like a gadget instead of a coworker. Dan explains why "we need AI on the website" isn't a strategy, and why organizations without a written, department-by-department plan can't assign ownership, measure ROI, or know if a tool is actually working.
The conversation turns tactical fast. S...
Most DMOs talk about economic impact. Chris Fair, CEO of Resonance Co and author of the annual Best Cities report, talks about something harder to measure — and more consequential: whether a city is actually lovable.
In this episode, Fair shares data from Resonance's perception vs. performance analysis across hundreds of destinations. The gap between how a place performs on objective metrics and how people actually feel ...
Most DMOs measure success in website clicks and visitor guide downloads. Gary Sherwin has spent 20 years at Visit Newport Beach asking a harder question: if you disappeared tomorrow, would your stakeholders call you essential - or just convenient?
This episode covers the implications of Google I/O, where itinerary builders and shopping carts inside search may soon make the DMO website an afterthought, through to Gary's case th...
Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker welcome back Dan Holowack (CrowdRift) and Janette Roush (Brand USA) for a tactical deep dive into how DMOs are actually using AI day-to-day.
The episode opens with a provocative Stu's News: 92% of respondents to an AI-enthusiast newsletter poll said they want more regulation — a number that surprises even the hosts. The group unpacks the growing backlash, from commencement speech boos to you...
What happens when destination marketing organizations start optimizing for short-term ROI at the exact moment AI is fundamentally changing how travelers discover destinations?
In this thought-provoking episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker welcome back recurring guest Emily Zertuche for one of the most important conversations the show has tackled yet.
The discussion dives deep into Emily’s latest...
In this episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker are joined by Dan Gibson, CEO of Visit McMinnville and former journalist, to explore the collapse of local media — and what DMOs should do about it.
Topics include:
• Anthropic's Claude for Small Business launch and what it means for destination marketers
• The state of local journalism and the storytelling void it leaves behind
• Whether DM...
In this episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker share a live session recorded at Destinations International’s MarCom Summit, where they challenge the industry to rethink the role, purpose, and value of destination marketing organizations.
The live conversation focuses on a first-principles question every DMO should be asking: Why do we exist? From there, Stuart and Adam explore who the DMO’s...
In this episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker are joined by AI leaders Janette Roush and Dan Holowack for a fast-moving, no-fluff conversation on where AI is actually going—and what DMOs are missing right now.
After some classic banter (and a custom-made Stu’s News jingle created at the gym), the conversation quickly shifts into a deeper look at how tools like Claude are evolving—fro...
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