Scott Beck, President & CEO, Visit Salt Lake:

The way that DestinationNEXT is structured, is it really talks about the destination. I don’t really look it as a way to talk about the individual relevance of the organization. It’s going to talk about the destination, and part of that clearly is the destination organization and their performance measures within the overall strategy. But I think the most important thing, for me, about DestinationNEXT is really focusing the discussion on the destination because it’s that product that ultimately the bureau is engaged to promote.

With the online diagnostic tool, we’re now able to survey various stakeholder groups, customer groups, or our own board with this tool, and look for areas where we have opportunities to either better communicate our message or help change products at our destination, and find those areas where we’re not in alignment. So maybe we say we’re X and our customer advisory board looks at this tool, does the assessment, and says, ‘Really you’re Y. You think you’re X, we think you’re Y.’ So, wow, our customers are saying one thing and we’re saying another, so we need to work on that.

Richard W. Scharf, President & CEO, VISIT DENVER:

As a past board member of Destinations International, I was very impressed with the work that Paul and his team did on DestinationNEXT. Directly after the rollout, VISIT DENVER had Paul attend our board retreat and provide the same overview for our board members.  

My board members were very impressed with how Paul was able to present in layman’s terms, the key findings which will have great implications for the Bureau and all travel-related companies. Among the things he discussed were: rapidly changing consumer travel patterns; the fight for consumer’s attention; how destination organizations can add value to their communities; how to grow the overall travel market; how to overcome challenges presented by membership models and limited resources; and, what destination organizations will need to do in the future to stay relevant to their stakeholders.  

We had Paul come back just a month ago to complete the DestinationNEXT online assessment and facilitate a workshop. The assessment was completed by over 100 staff, board members, community leaders and industry partners. The results provided very useful information on strategic issues and priorities for our organization and destination.  What impressed us the most was Paul’s flexibility and understanding of our industry.  The analysis was an easy way for a destination to identify opportunities and threats.

Milton Segarra, President & CEO, Meet Puerto Rico:

I just wanted to take this time to thank Paul and Destinations International, on behalf of our team and our Board of Directors, for the remarkable DestinationNEXT workshop. As you know, Meet Puerto Rico is an advocate of innovation. The DestinationNEXT session evidenced once again, how valuable the destination assessment model and the guidelines and recommendations from DestinationNEXT are to any organization. In our case, it has made the difference. 

Your leadership and facilitating experience were instrumental in achieving our goals in our two-day session. The end result, our 2015-2017 Innovation and Strategic Plan, was unanimously approved by our Board of Directors and it will be presented to our entire membership. We are equally excited and confident our membership will endorse and embrace our two-year plan, but most importantly, will engage and increase our community support.