The light went off for me at that moment…and not just that our PR pitches could be better. At roughly the same time, I had watched an online video of a DMO CEO present their budget request to a City Council using the same high school report format. Who we are, why we do what we do, how many awards we have won for our work…etc. When that first slide should have been like a Steve Jobs presentation: $90 million in non-resident local taxes generated! Big, bold and in their face. We generate more tax revenue to your bottom line that any other contractor in which you invest, bar none. Would you like to see how?

It’s a Brand New Day, indeed. A few weeks ago, at the Annual Convention, Destination Marketing Association International introduced the new management team at the Mothership…and a renewed sense of purpose, professionalism and passion that was palpable. It’s something for which our industry had been missing for a while.

Think your Destination Marketing Organization is exempt from the new federal overtime law?  Think again.

On December 1st of this year, be ready for the single biggest challenge to the way DMOs have been doing business in my 30 years as a DMO director. And, while it is about money, it’s more about our ability to get our jobs done in 40 hours or less each week. The US Department of Labor has issued new rulings on who and what qualifies for “exempt” status, based upon the amount of salary for all employees, non-profits included. Not only must you pay your full-time exempt staff $47,476 annually (no geographic consideration for employers in rural Ohio versus the city of Los Angeles), each of those employees will have to be reevaluated to make sure they pass the federal qualification for the “duties” test.

There’s a great George Carlin routine from very early in his career in which he skewers the way Americans have a penchant for increasingly dumbing down words and phrases until nobody knows what they mean. With all due respect to those that use “Strategic” as a throwaway word to connote something valuable, it really is an extremely important word that has begun to lose its meaning.

As if Destination Marketing isn't tough enough at the local level, the shit going down in some States is enough to consider another career. Yes...the very States that are supposed to plow the road for us are increasingly making it more difficult to market our stunning destinations. For example:  I've watched as Sunshine Laws in Florida have scared off the vast majority of potential qualified applicants to succeed Nicki Grossman at the Greater Ft. Lauderdale CVB. I’ve watched as a vendor’s lack of sophistication and attention to detail (and a media’s appetite for “gotcha”) resulted in the hasty resignation of an accomplished DMO pro and a public outcry for future marketing to be handled by in-state agencies. And, I’ve watched nut job politicians in North Carolina and Mississippi pass laws to legalize discrimination based upon sexual preference, ignoring the backlash and loss of business that Indiana experienced before reversing a similar action last year.