The Architects of Destination Advocacy

The Architects of Destination Advocacy

Advocacy is a responsibility every destination organization leader should adopt as part of their critical skills in their role. Now more than ever, we are tasked with going beyond just sales and marketing of our destinations and advocating for our community to the world's stage. Each month join Andreas Weissenborn to go through our sector's history on pivotal moments where advocacy was used to change the course of their destination’s future. These are the stories of the architects of destination advocacy.

Episodes

December 22, 2024 32 mins
Today, I’m honored to be joined by our two incredible Advocacy Committee Chairs: Gary Sanchez from Visit Dallas, who is completing his second and final year as co-chair, and Julie Gilbert from Destination Door County, who’s wrapping up her first year in this leadership role. In 2024, the Advocacy Committee tackled a range of pressing topics — from crisis preparedness and sustainability to community engagement and the evolving polic...
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Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by none other than Josiah Brown, also known as the New York Sherpa, who served as the emcee for our recent Advocacy Summit in Puerto Rico this October. As the summit's guide and a keen observer, Josiah had a front-row seat to some of the most dynamic conversations happening on and off the stage. From strategies for enhanced community engagement to navigating the challenges of tourism funding and res...
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October 20, 2024 35 mins
Today, we have a continued announcement to introduce the new Accessibility Playbook, a comprehensive and actionable framework designed to enhance accessibility across the tourism landscape. This playbook isn't just a guide; it's a powerful tool packed with hundreds of resources, tips, and real-world use cases that can help you align your destination with the needs of all visitors. Whether you're managing a small team or a large-sca...
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Our guest today is Amir Eylon, the President and CEO of Longwoods International, a leader in tourism & Destination research. Amir brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the table, especially when it comes to understanding resident sentiment towards tourism. Longwoods International has been at the forefront of gathering and analyzing data to help destinations understand how their residents feel about tourism in their communi...
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Welcome to our special and final 3 of 3 podcast episode arc around the release of our brand-new research study, Destination Promotion: A Catalyst for Community Vitality.  This report emphasizes the pivotal role of destination organizations in shaping the economic and cultural landscape of communities that go beyond the realms of traditional tourism. Our discussion today will unravel how these organizations act as catalysts for a br...
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Welcome to a special 2 of 3 podcast episode arc around the release of our brand-new research study, Destination Promotion: A Catalyst for Community Vitality. The report emphasizes the pivotal role of destination organizations in shaping the economic and cultural landscape of communities far beyond the realms of traditional tourism.  Our discussion today will unravel how these organizations, act as catalysts for a broad spectrum of ...
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Welcome to a special 1 of 3 podcast episode arc around the release of our brand-new research study, Destination Promotion: A Catalyst for Community Vitality and its key findings. The report emphasizes the pivotal role of destination organizations in shaping the economic and cultural landscape of communities far beyond the realms of traditional tourism.  Our discussion will unravel how these organizations, by transcending their conv...
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Today’s podcast episode and the first for the new year takes into the realm of community connectors for the greater good of collaboration. (a tongue twister) As destination organizations, our role and primary stewardship is the Community! We foster economic development, quality of place, and community vitality. All through the power of collaboration! In many ways, collaboration is our greatest asset as we are neither silos nor sing...
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December 17, 2023 37 mins
Today’s podcast episode and guests is our final one for 2023 and a reflection of our advocacy committee for destinations international. Destinations International is a tapestry of volunteer committees and task forces that help guide and initiate much of the output and direction the association takes year after year. Committee members constitute a myriad of different organizations across the members of destinations international and...
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November 5, 2023 33 mins
The 2023 Advocacy Summit in Little Rock, AR brought forward major releases on behalf of Destinations International and our ongoing advocacy efforts. Listen to the advocacy team walk through all our releases and with links to everything in the show notes. Community Vitality Wheel: Community Vitality Wheel | Destinations International Destination Effect: The Destination Effect A Destination Promotion Community Index: A Destination Pr...
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September 10, 2023 29 mins
Today’s conversation and guests to the show are here to discuss the flagship research project that was just released at Annual Convention, the 2023 DestinationNEXT Future Study. What is the future study for those unaware?  Well, Picture this: Over 800 destination leaders from 62 countries, all coming together to share their take on the sector’s trends and strategies shaping our landscape. This isn't just any report – it's the bigge...
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July 30, 2023 25 mins
As a listener of the show, we talk tales of advocacy of both the past and present but today is one hypothetical for a near-term future. This isn’t going to be your typical talk around A.I that we have heard in our sector but instead, all about understanding how A.I can be used for Destination Advocacy. To talk through these possibilities, I’m happy to welcome to the show, Janette Roush, Executive Vice President Marketing and Digita...
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July 2, 2023 22 mins
Today’s conversation and guest is a deeper dive into one of the largest regional demographics of our membership of destination organizations, which is in the Southeast corner of the United States.  Destinations International understands we can’t always be everywhere and try to work with regional and community entities that geographically represent these highly clustered areas of destination organizations. And for good reason, even ...
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Today’s conversation and guest are unlike one you have ever heard on our show before and I am not just talking about the who, what, and where of the story (all of which are great!) but really understanding what “a good place to live is a good place to visit” means to a destination few of us have been. Something I know our guest hopes to change for us all!  Oulu, Finland is having a moment, and not just against the backdrop of the w...
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Today’s conversation is all about shipbuilding in a sense. Running a destination organization is tough, and managing one in a pandemic is tougher but what about trying to actually create a brand-new destination organization through a once-in-a-century event? (We hope)  Today’s guest is all about what it’s like to launch a ship in the roughest of waters and somehow steer it through to the other side in hopes of finding prosperity an...
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Today’s conversation and guest is intended to be a peak behind the curtains of managing the destination’s brand through extremely polarizing times. I’ve mentioned at lengths at which the world has begun to spin, it seems in more illogical ways and an outcome of that resulting in issues and policies entering the zeitgeist of our communities in a polarizing fashion.  The job at a destination organization was already tough because of ...
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February 26, 2023 27 mins
Starting out 2023, this is the first year I think we can confidently say what a return to business events looks like for our industry. In the past 3 years, we’ve seen the ebb and flow, the starting and stopping and starting again of business events navigating the pandemic and its many variants and also various country-level regulations around the mitigations surrounding those risks. But with the added twist of political and global ...
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January 29, 2023 45 mins
2022 for many of us could be called the next normal year through our progression of the pandemic timeline we are all in. With the return of events, holiday gatherings, social events and other pre-pandemic activities, some might even call it “normal.” With that, we have seen some societal norms shift as well, and one I would argue being the biggest shift and potential winner of 2022 is the adoption of cannabis and hemp through both ...
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November 20, 2022 28 mins
At the start of 2022, we at Destinations International outlined 8 strategic issues and opportunities for the sector and around the world in our next normal. The 8th issue we outlined was climate change and the many climate crises many of our destination organizations find themselves in. For some, this might be a recent or new challenge they are facing but for many of our coastal destinations, this has always been part of the gig an...
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September 25, 2022 43 mins
One of the reasons why we wanted to start a podcast was to tell the tale of advocacy of our sector across major moments, both present and past. With our guest today we get to actually talk about advocacy an entire millennium ago and how it shaped a destination’s future. You might know him as Chief Instigator for DMOPROZ and fellow podcast host of DMOU, but today, Bill Geist has joined us to go back to the late 80s and early ninetie...
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