Destination marketing leaders have identified the major challenges they face in 2016, and the need for cohesive strategies that address them. As marketers respond to the shift to consumer engagement, evolving consumer behaviour and word of mouth, the need to measure marketing effectiveness and to lead stakeholders to improve the customer journey, it’s now more important than ever to build strategic models that focus on creating valuable consumer experiences in order to make a wider impact on the industry.

How can destinations organize these improvements, and what could the future of destination marketing look like? To explore this question, Destination Think’s CEO, Rodney Payne brought together a panel of some of Canada’s leading destination marketers during a keynote presentation at the 2015 Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC)’s annual Congress held in Ottawa, Ontario. Panelists included:

• Marsha Walden, CEO of Destination British Columbia
• David Peacock, CEO of RT04 Inc. in Ontario
• Emmanuelle Legault, Vice-President of Marketing, Tourisme Montréal
• Paul Clark, Vice-President Destinations and Customer Experience, InterVISTAS
• and Paul Tambeau, Director, Tourism and Economic Development, InterVISTAS.

Watch this presentation to learn about the end-to-end travel experience and visions to reshape destination marketing:

The talk describes the current disruptions to the consumer landscape and how destinations can best respond. Rodney presents a strategic model for destination marketing, emphasizing the importance of word-of-mouth promotion: “The one thing that matters to your destination more than anything else is word of mouth from friends and family; locals; visitors and your tourism industry. Nothing else matters as much as that.”

Read the complete presentation notes along with the slide deck here: Rodney Payne – The future of destination marketing.