Amid geopolitical tension, shifting trade relationships and political polarization, tourism remains uniquely positioned to transcend borders. Its role as an economic driver, diplomatic connector and cultural bridge is more important than ever.

This timely session brings together global tourism leaders to examine how the sector can navigate political and economic volatility while strengthening communities, economies and international relationships.

Isabel Hill, Advisor and former Director of the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office, will draw on her experience working across four U.S. administrations to explore tourism’s role in a changing geopolitical environment—and how destinations can position it as a forward-looking strategy for connection, resilience and shared prosperity.

Amir Eylon, President and CEO of Longwoods International, will share the latest domestic and international traveler research. His presentation will reveal the behaviours, motivations and expectations shaping travel today and what they mean for destinations seeking to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Amir Eylon

President and CEO

Longwoods International

Isabel Hill

Advisor and Former Director

U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office

 

 

 

The conversation will explore:

• Innovation and Trends: The forces reshaping global travel, from technology and sustainability to changing visitor expectations
• Advocacy and Policy: Navigating policy priorities, political polarization, trade tensions and cross-border collaboration
• Building for the Future: Strengthening tourism’s role as a connector among communities, countries and cultures while advancing long-term resilience and shared prosperity.

The session will conclude with an open forum and audience Q&A, creating space to exchange perspectives and translate global insights into practical action.

Invite questions and perspectives from the room; connect global insights to practical action.

EXPLORE: Shaping Stronger Communities Join us for the inaugural Advocacy & Action: The Destination Impact Event, where destination leaders come together to explore the strategies, partnerships and solutions that strengthen communities and shape the future of destination organizations.

Sophia Hyder Hock

Chief Impact Officer

Destinations International

Andreas Weissenborn

Senior Vice President, Advocacy & Destination Advancement

Destinations International

 

 

 

Advocacy and marketing are often viewed as separate functions, but the most effective destination organizations recognize that they are deeply connected. The stories a destination organization tells, the audiences it engages, and the value it demonstrates every day all contribute to building trust, credibility, and support long before an advocacy challenge arises.

Through two destination case studies, explore how marketing initiatives have strengthened advocacy efforts by increasing community understanding, reinforcing organizational value, and building stronger relationships with residents, elected officials, and key stakeholders. Attendees will gain practical insights into how thoughtful marketing can serve as one of the most effective advocacy tools available, creating a stronger foundation for navigating policy discussions, funding conversations, and moments of public scrutiny.

Tony Snell Rodriguez

Director of Community Engagement and Inclusion

Visit Milwaukee

Danyelle Perry

Digital Marketing Manager

Visit Overland Park

Sergio Piedra

Associate Vice President - Intergovernmental Affairs

Discover The Palm Beaches

Lauren Pace

Vice President of Marketing

Destinations International

 

Public policy is increasingly shaping the environment in which destination organizations operate. From governance and funding to housing, workforce, infrastructure, and quality of life, today’s policy landscape requires destination leaders to anticipate emerging issues rather than simply respond to them.

Drawing on Destinations International’s work tracking destination policy trends across North America and globally, this session will examine the common issues influencing destinations and the insights gained through that work. Explore a practical framework for developing a destination-specific policy approach, including methods for identifying priority issues, monitoring legislative and community developments, and establishing an internal process that supports stronger advocacy and more informed decision-making.

Andreas Weissenborn

Senior Vice President, Advocacy & Destination Advancement

Destinations International

Glenn Rudolph

Director of Destination Policy

Destinations International

 

 

 

A candid panel conversation with destination and community leaders will explore how belonging is built through the choices we make, who gets to shape them, and how we stay accountable to community benefit. Panelists will share practical lessons on moving from consultation to co-ownership, setting guardrails that protect culture and reduce extractive storytelling, and creating partnership approaches that respect capacity and local priorities.

James Leppan, CDME

Director, Destination Strategy

Explore Edmonton

 

 

 

 

Explore how DMOs can work with local Workforce Development Boards and neighboring destinations to build a structured, scalable hospitality talent pipeline. Using the Annapolis and Baltimore markets as a real-world example, this session will examine a four-phase workforce development roadmap, strategies for building regional consensus and securing funding, and how workforce partnerships can expand access to opportunity while strengthening the visitor economy and community vitality.

Mia Blom

Senior Director of Government & Community Affairs/Executive Director

Visit Baltimore Education & Training Foundation, Visit Baltimore

Shannon Harcum

Chief Operating Officer, Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County

Executive Director (VAAAC-Foundation), Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Foundation, Inc.

 

 

 

Join Tony Sgro and Thomas Hallin for an interactive introduction to ACCESS FORWARD, a global university travel and tourism initiative developed with Destinations International and focused on the issues that matter most to destinations worldwide.

Learn how DMOs can use this time-tested experiential learning model to partner with student teams, identify priorities, challenges, and emerging opportunities in different markets, and implement campaigns, products and tools to address their business challenges. We'll explore both shared concerns and locally shaped issues, building the foundation for future program implementation that reflects the perspectives and needs of destination professionals across countries and regions.

Tony Sgro

Founder & CEO

EdVenture Partners

Thomas Halli

Chief Visionary & Ecosystem Architect

Entrepreneurship For Everyone (EFE)

 

 

 

The strongest advocacy asset most destination organizations have is already on the board roster and almost never gets used on purpose. Board members are chamber presidents, hoteliers, restaurateurs, county commissioners, airport directors, and university leaders. Each one carries a sphere of influence into rooms the DMO staff will never enter. Most boards never name those spheres, never map them, and never activate them. Then a funding threat appears, and the organization scrambles to build the political capital that good governance would have compounded over years. This session reframes advocacy as a governance function rather than a communications tactic. Advocacy is a key function of what the board does, and it belongs in the board's job description, orientation, annual work plan, and self-assessment. Attendees will leave with: A sphere of influence mapping exercise to run at the next board retreat, identifying which relationships each director already holds and which ones the board is missing Board recruitment criteria that account for influence and access alongside sector representation Sample board orientation language that establishes advocacy as an expectation from day one The session is designed for DMO executives, board chairs, and advocacy leads who want their boards to be genuinely useful between meetings.

Aviva North

Senior Associate Principal

Coraggio Group

Jen Gray-O'Connor

Senior Associate Principal

Coraggio Group

 

 

 

A research based look at how American and Canadian travelers currently view cross-border travel. The session covers overall traveler sentiment trends, American interest in visiting Canada, and Canadian interest in visiting the United States—highlighting shifts in perception, motivation, and demand on both sides of the border.

Myha Gallagher

Vice President of Brand

Future Partners

 

 

 

 

Destination organizations are championing accessibility, investing in public spaces, and strengthening their communities in ways that extend far beyond tourism promotion. Too often, that work goes unseen or uncommunicated to the stakeholders and community members who need to understand it. This session explores how destination organizations are navigating community impact work and the conversations that come with it. How do you earn trust with partners and residents? How do you communicate your value when the work doesn't fit neatly into a traditional tourism narrative? And what happens when your messaging collides with decisions outside your control? We'll hear from Ottawa Tourism on how their accessibility and sustainability efforts, including Canada's first destination-led food recovery program, are creating lasting community impact. We'll also hear from Visit Colorado Springs on building a sustainability campaign while navigating public sentiment shifts surrounding a proposed data center development in the region.

Kyle Huff

Director of Growth Marketing

Tempest

Melissa Williams

Director of Marketing

Visit Colorado Springs

Kelly Haussler, CDME

Director, Destination Development

Ottawa Tourism

 

 

Most tourism advocacy efforts lead with total visitor spend, a number that doesn't say much about where that spend actually landed. For a state legislature weighing budget requests from every district, that distinction matters. This session explores dispersion — the share of a state's counties showing measurable, positive spending lift — as an indicator that speaks directly to rural and legislative stakeholders. Using a statewide SpendLift analysis of North Dakota, where over $30M in incremental visitor spending reached counties across the state, we'll show destination organizations how to build an advocacy case that represents every community they serve, not just the biggest ones.

Heather LeMoine

Marketing and Research Manager

North Dakota Department of Commerce

Ktimene Axetell

CEO

Arrivalist

 

 

 

As climate-related disruption becomes more visible, destination organizations are being asked to help communities navigate both risk and opportunity. This panel will use El Niño as a practical entry point for discussing how climate events affect the visitor economy.  Destination leaders will share their experiences with recent natural disasters and explore how DMOs can best communicate uncertainty without creating alarm and maintain trust when visitor-economy needs intersect with community recovery. The discussion will offer practical ideas for positioning destination organizations as credible partners in climate adaptation and economic resilience.

Every destination leader gets the same question, just from different directions. A commissioner asks what the funding bought. A partner asks whether the event was worth it. A resident asks what any of it did for them. Three leaders answer from three very different seats: a CEO who defends the budget, a marketing director who owns the headline number, and a community engagement officer who answers to residents. Each needs different evidence. Each has learned which numbers survive scrutiny and which ones quietly cost you credibility. They'll get specific about what they can prove now that they couldn't before, how the Event Impact Calculator and Symphony changed what they walk into a room with, and what they'd tell a destination still making its case one report at a time.

Travis Napper, CDME, Moderator

Director of Destination Partnerships

Tourism Economics

Donna Carpenter

President & CEO

Explore Cabarrus

Sonya Bradley

Chief Inclusion & Community Engagement Officer

Visit Sacramento

Melissa Williams

Director of Marketing

Visit Colorado Springs

 

Tourism infrastructure is an investment in the long-term economic and community vitality of a destination. Well-planned assets can diversify economies, create jobs, support small businesses, enhance quality of life, strengthen destination identity, and generate year-round activity. However, tourism demand alone does not attract investment. Investment readiness requires destinations to understand how private capital evaluates opportunity and risk and to align policies, processes, infrastructure, and partnerships accordingly. Investors consider financial feasibility, pre-development costs, required returns, and capital structure, but certainty can matter more than incentives. Predictable approvals, clear zoning, infrastructure readiness, transparent governance, and consistent community direction reduce risk. Destinations can communicate this readiness through an investment prospectus combining market data, infrastructure capacity, policy clarity, incentives, community alignment, and sustainability positioning. Public participation should focus on de-risking projects without over-subsidizing them through performance-based incentives, predictable permitting, strategic land use, and milestone-based participation. Ultimately, investment readiness reflects market opportunity + community alignment + policy clarity + infrastructure readiness + financial discipline + certainty of execution. Destination leaders should identify one policy they can influence, one structural barrier to address, and one concrete next step toward attracting investment.

Dan Fenton

Managing Director

JLL Global Tourism & Destination Advisory

Shirin Jafari

Vice President

JLL Global Tourism & Destination Advisory Group

 

 

 

See Ottawa in a whole new way during this 2-hour interactive, team-based adventure through the city. Along the way, you’ll complete photo and video challenges, answer trivia, and enjoy a little friendly competition with fellow teams. Participants will walk between challenge locations, with most activities taking place indoors.

Experience Parliament Hill from a different perspective during this approximately 1-hour experience through an innovative exhibition and 360° multimedia show that brings Centre Block to life. Experience times are available at 3:10 PM, 3:35 PM and 4:20 PM. Tickets are limited for each time and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Attendees will walk from the Delta to the parliament building, with the immersive experience itself taking place indoors. Please note that the experience includes moments of near darkness, flashing lights, motion video and immersive sound.

Amir Eylon is back once again for this "must see" session sharing the first look at highlights and insights from Longwoods International's Annual American & Canadian Resident Sentiment Towards Tourism studies! Attendees will see gain access to the latest research and insights from these important annual "pulse checks" of resident attitudes towards tourism in relation to their community and various aspects of their lives! Completed on behalf of the Destinations International Foundation, this research has become an essential KPI for Destination Organizations.

Amir Eylon

President & C.E.O.

Longwoods International

 

 

 

 

You don’t need a large budget or a big team to build influence for your destination. Designed for DMOs with operating budgets of $0–3 million, this session explores how small DMOs can make advocacy part of how they operate by building relationships, telling compelling stories, using data, creating coalitions, and consistently showing up where conversations and decisions are taking shape. Through real-world examples, a focused case study, and facilitated discussion, attendees will leave with practical ideas for strengthening partnerships, activating advocates, and ensuring their destination has a voice where it matters.

Jayne DeLuce

President, CEO & Foundation Executive Director

Experience Champaign-Urbana

 

 

 

 

As destination organizations grow, so do the complexity and expectations surrounding advocacy. Designed for destination organizations with operating budgets of $3–10 million, this session examines a real-world advocacy campaign from a mid-sized destination organization. Through a focused case study and facilitated discussion, participants will explore strategies for engaging elected officials, business leaders, community partners, and industry stakeholders while balancing competing priorities. 

John Urdi, CDME

President & CEO

Visit Huntington Beach, CA

 

 

 

 

Large destination organizations often lead advocacy efforts across complex political, economic, and community landscapes. Designed for destination organizations with operating budgets of $10 million and above, this session explores a real-world advocacy campaign from a large destination organization. Through an in-depth case study and facilitated discussion, participants will examine executive-level strategy, coalition leadership, public policy engagement, and cross-sector collaboration used to address significant community and industry challenges. 

Frida Bahja, Ph.D.

Director of Research

Experience Kissimmee

 

 

 

 

Your board wants more than heads in beds. Your community wants jobs that last, neighborhoods that stay livable, and a say in how tourism shapes where they live. And your civic partners are watching to see if your organization is part of the solution.

The problem isn't that destination organizations don't care about social impact, it's that we need a shared language, a common framework, and tools built for the real constraints DMOs face. In this session, Destinations International and JLL Destination Advisory will show you what we've been building, You'll test an early prototype of DI's Social Impact Measurement System against real DMO scenarios and help shape what this looks like so it's actually useful to you.

Daniel Nahoopii

Lead, Industry Data and Research

JLL Global Tourism and Destination Advisory

Sophia Hyder Hock

Chief Impact Officer

Destinations International

 

 

 

Most destinations think they have a marketing challenge. They actually have a credibility challenge. Years of inflated success stories, shifting metrics, and self-reported wins have taught outside audiences to discount tourism's numbers before they hear them, and the industry played a role in creating that. The skepticism rarely shows up as a "no." It shows up as a delayed vote, a request for another study, a quiet reallocation, or a board that keeps asking the same question a different way. That reaches well past the annual budget. It shows up when an assessment comes up for renewal, when a regulation threatens the visitor economy, when a board questions the value of marketing, and when residents challenge tourism's impact. In most cases the skeptics are not being unreasonable. Every sector arrives claiming success. Tourism has to earn belief the same as anyone else, and most destination reporting was never designed for that standard. This session breaks down how outside audiences actually evaluate evidence, the five credibility killers that cost tourism advocates the room, and why the most impressive number in your deck may be the one that costs you the most. You Will Walk Away With:

• How policymakers and other outside audiences evaluate evidence differently than marketers do
• The five credibility killers, and what to say instead of each one
• The three tests evidence has to pass to be believed: independent, causal, and economic
• Three leadership commitments that build credibility between meetings, not just during them

Chuck Davison

VP of Commercial Strategy & Partnerships

Tourism Economics

 

 

 

 

Small and mid-tier destinations don’t need big-city budgets to earn big-city buy-in — and that’s a lesson every market can use. This session shows how resource-lean organizations craft compelling economic impact stories that win over commissioners, councils, and communities, with real examples of messaging and data that shifted perceptions, support, and even funding conversations. We’ll explore how they turn hoteliers, restaurants, and residents into everyday advocates, and why it’s not how much you spend, but where you spend it, that wins support.

Barbara Karasek

CMO

Paradise Advertising

 

 

 

 

When destinations improve accessibility for visitors with disabilities, they gain more than high-spending travelers—they create a lasting benefit for the community. Every ramp, clear trail, and sensory-friendly guide designed for tourists is used ten times as often by residents with disabilities who live, work, and play there each day. By creating accessible experiences, destination organizations not only increase visitor revenue but also improve residents’ daily lives for years to come. Accessibility is more than a tourism campaign—it is community infrastructure that strengthens the organization’s relevance and value.

Jake Steinman

Founder and CEO

Travelability

Edward Harris

CEO

Visit Williamsburg

 

 

 

Great places take years to shape, but along the way, leadership changes, market conditions shift, funding priorities evolve, and new opportunities emerge. Without continuity, even strong plans can lose momentum. As investments in luxury hotels and residential development, waterfront and river activations, and convention center growth take shape across Tampa Bay, Visit Tampa Bay is helping prioritize opportunities, advocate for projects, and keep important initiatives moving forward. This conversation will offer a real-world look at the increasingly active role destination organizations can play in helping shape development as their destinations advance and evolve. That more continuous approach is at the heart of Hunden’s Chief Place Office. Through the Tampa Bay experience, the conversation will explore how destination organizations can create greater continuity from planning through implementation, use ongoing intelligence to evaluate opportunities and respond to changing conditions, communicate impact to key stakeholders, and make important decisions with greater confidence.

Bethanie DeRose

Executive Vice President, Consulting

Hunden Partners

Rob Hunden

President & CEO

Hunden Partners

JoLynn Lokey

Chief Operating Officer

Visit Tampa Bay

 

 

As Destination Organizations are more frequently asked to prove their value, defend their role, and navigate scrutiny, leaders are seeking clarity on where tourism fits in their community. These leaders need to know what forces are shaping their position and where there is potential risk to the organization. Vital Signs provides an assessment to help determine whether your organization is sitting at the table, convening the conversation, or simply on the menu. This session will include case studies to show how other destinations are assessing their standing in the community and pinpoint how their work can be more catalytic.

David Holder, CDME

Principal

Clarity of Place

 

 

 

 

AI is increasingly influencing which restaurants, attractions, shops and experiences travelers discover, but those recommendations are shaped by far more than a destination website. Listings, reviews, imagery, local content and third-party platforms all contribute to the digital “ground truth” AI uses to understand and recommend a place. This creates a powerful opportunity for destination organizations: partnership teams can play a critical role in strengthening how their destination and local businesses show up across search and AI-powered discovery. Using real-world examples, this session will explore how DMOs can evolve traditional partner support into a destination-wide visibility strategy. Attendees will learn how to identify gaps in local businesses’ digital presence, strengthen trust signals, surface authentic local stories and connect partners to DMO channels that expand their reach. Participants will leave with a practical framework for helping local businesses become more discoverable while strengthening the destination’s overall digital presence.

Lauren Fox

Director of Marketing

Miles Partnership

 

 

 

 

New legislation and new officials can reshape a destination's funding, TIDs, and tourism priorities, often before anyone on the team notices. In this hands-on session, Todd Brook walks attendees step by step through building their own AI-powered advocacy tracker. It monitors bills that affect their destination and builds living profiles of elected officials: their backgrounds, voting patterns, public statements, and where tourism fits in their priorities. Attendees leave with a working framework, so they can start using the next morning. No technical background required.

Todd Brook

CEO

Unchained

 

 

 

 

Advocacy and social impact increasingly intersect around community trust, shared priorities and demonstrating the value of destination organizations. But does bringing these functions together make both stronger, or risk diluting the purpose and expertise of each? In this unscripted debate, destination leaders will take opposing sides on where advocacy and impact should intersect, where they should remain distinct, and what effective collaboration looks like in practice.

Strong community relationships can become one of a destination organization’s most valuable advocacy assets, especially when funding, policy decisions or public perceptions are at stake. In this interactive session, explore practical strategies from DI’s Destination Professional’s Guide to Community Engagement and see how destination organizations are building trust, strengthening resident connections and turning community partners into informed advocates. Assess where your organization stands, identify an engagement opportunity to strengthen community support and begin developing an action you can put into practice immediately. Leave with adaptable examples, practical tools and a focused next step for moving community engagement from intention to action.

Tony Snell Rodriguez

Director of Community Engagement and Inclusion

Visit Milwaukee

Karen Mitchell, CDME

Sr. Project Manager 

Regional Tourism Organization 4 Inc.

Alyssa Poulin, MTA, CTA

Director of Content Development

Destinations International

 

 

Explain It Like I’m Nine starts with a simple challenge: strip away the industry jargon and explain what destination organizations actually do in a way anyone can understand. 2.0 takes that challenge one step further: how do you make that story matter to the person standing in front of you? In this hands-on session, build simple, community-centered language that connects your organization’s work to what residents, business leaders, elected officials and other stakeholders value. Leave with conversation starters, an elevator pitch and practical language that will help shape a new community advocacy resource.

Andreas Weissenborn

Senior Vice President, Advocacy & Destination Advancement

Destinations International

Josiah Brown

National Advocacy Liaison

New York State Tourism Industry Association

 

 

 

Explain It Like I’m Nine starts with a simple challenge: strip away the industry jargon and explain what destination organizations actually do in a way anyone can understand. 2.0 takes that challenge one step further: how do you make that story matter to the person standing in front of you? In this hands-on session, build simple, community-centered language that connects your organization’s work to what residents, business leaders, community partners and other stakeholders value. Leave with conversation starters, an elevator pitch and practical language that will help shape a new community impact resource.

Sophia Hyder Hock

Chief Impact Officer

Destinations International

 

 

 

 

For more than 30 years, the Colorado tourism funding case has served as the industry’s defining example of the consequences of eliminating destination promotion. Today, however, destination organizations face a much broader range of challenges, from funding reductions and governance changes to political scrutiny, reputational attacks, and evolving expectations of community value.

Be among the first to preview Destinations International’s newest research initiative, a modern successor to the landmark Colorado study. This research examines 21st-century examples of destination organizations that have been defunded, disrupted, or devalued, exploring the factors that led to these challenges, their impacts on communities, and the lessons they offer for destination leaders today.