When we work with communities such as St. Paul, it’s easy to focus on “the Downtown.” In most of these municipalities there is a general understanding that the Downtown is the heart of the destination. When working with County or Regional Destination Marketing Organizations, however, small town community pride makes the process much harder. There is the expectation that we (and the DMO) must be fair and treat every community within the destination with equal attention.

There’s an old saying that people that speak the same language should never be allowed to marry...because there exists an underlying assumption that each party understands what the other is saying.

Using statistics to prove the feasibility or validity of a project, a marketing campaign, a sales effort or, indeed, a Destination Marketing Organization can often be fraught with the same challenge. What ROI is to you may mean something completely different to the person listening.

After the last DMAI Future Study in 2008, leadership at the Durham CVB took the bones of a graphic in that report that attempted to define all the things for which Destination Marketing Organizations should be engaged and customized it. Their version of what was dubbed “The Maltese Cross” by some has always been my favorite version...and we’ve shown it to a number of our clients over the ensuing years during Strategic Planning retreats across the country. See it HERE.

It’s pretty amazing how crystal everything becomes when you view it through a completely different lens. In my case, that lens drove on the left side of the road and celebrated the first day of summer just days after Americans celebrated Thanksgiving. Being an American Destination Marketing consultant in Australia and New Zealand last month certainly filled my head with a number of swirling revelations.

As the art and science of Destination Marketing continues to evolve at a dizzying pace, I continue to wrestle with “Tastes Great: Less Filling” conundrum of “Group Sales: Leisure Marketing.” In large convention center destinations, no such conundrum exists for your humble squire. You gotta fill the build.