It’s but just over a week since we returned from the Annual Conference of Destinations International (formerly Destination Marketing Association International)…and our collective heads are simply spinning. If there was a prevailing theme at the conference this year…it was that destination marketing is increasingly being weaponized by politicians that know that the masses don’t understand the crucial importance of what we do on their behalf. Thus, it is easy to stoke the flames of class envy with an unsophisticated electorate. And, while many politicians enter public life with the best of intentions, they quickly realize that securing future votes is more important than doing what is right.

If you are a Marketing or Sales professional and have aspirations of leading a Destination Marketing Organization, you’re not going to like what I have to say. Those that aspire to lead the DMOs of the future will need to be political operatives more than accomplished marketers.

It happened again this month. A series of seemingly random stimuli coalesced into a concept for y’all to consider in this edition of the Z-News. WARNING: This is a longish rant. If you'd rather listen than read, click HERE.

Stimuli One: When a crisis befalls your community or the media impugns your destination, the DMO confidently steps in to respond, right? Except when you are a County Department DMO that is required to run all such responses through a couple attorneys, the purchasing agent, an oversight Board and some low level administrators. It happened to a DMO in Florida last summer when an Atlanta TV station erroneously reported that flesh eating bacteria were washing ashore in that destination. Because of the draconian restrictions the County had laid on the DMO, a response took over a month to be mounted; a tad late to have any effect on public opinion.

Stimuli Two: Sticking with Florida, the Legislature there has passed a State budget that slashes the funding of Visit Florida from $78 million to $25 million and has placed draconian (there’s that word again) restrictions on how the agency functions day-to-day that even the paired down effort is doomed to failure.

“You gotta be there before you gotta be there.” I don’t know if he coined the phrase, but I learned that from my friend Phil Craig (CEO of the Ohio Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus). The insanity currently in play in the Florida Legislature (the House of Representatives has voted to radically cut its investment in Visit Florida) should certainly cause anyone in a leadership position within the Destination Marketing sector to take Phil’s words as serious as a heart attack. Because, they ARE coming for you, too.

To paraphrase the Persuaders (and the Pretenders' sensational cover), it’s a fine line between legal and not. And, sad to say, we’re seeing a lot more utilization of Hotel Occupancy Tax on pet projects and questionable investments than ever before. Despite being told once by a legislator, “I don’t give a damn about original intent,” let’s be clear here: The intent of Room Tax has always been to increase visitation to a destination. It’s why, in many cases, the hotel and lodging community supported (or, at least chose not to oppose) the imposition of the tax in the first place. If invested properly, it would serve to increase their business.