“We believe that tourism has superpowers that go far beyond experiences, accommodation and revenue.” — Rikke Holm Petersen

Travel’s full impact on society – both positive and negative – is not often fully understood or discussed. But that’s starting to change. Today’s leading destinations are charting a future with strategies that help places navigate complexity and make sure communities and the environment benefit.

In a live webinar presented by Destination Think in November 2024, Rikke Holm Petersen from Wonderful Copenhagen introduced the “Copenhagen, All Inclusive” strategy, an innovative approach aimed at creating a better world through travel. The overarching purpose is bold yet clear: ensuring that a journey to Copenhagen contributes positively to the planet and society, making it more beneficial than staying home.

The webinar also included a panel discussion featuring three other members of the Destination Think Collective: Leslie Bruce from Banff & Lake Louise Tourism, featuring Susan Estler from Travel Marquette and Ellen Walker-Matthews from the Thompson-Okanagan Tourism Association. These leaders shared unique insights on applying the lessons from the “Copenhagen, All Inclusive” strategy, touching on themes like climate leadership, managing seasonality, redefining success with new KPIs, and fostering collaboration across sectors.

All speakers were part of the Destination Think Collective, a group committed to sharing solutions and supporting one another to solve common challenges. By working together, they highlight the value of mutual support to create lasting positive change. 

You’ll also learn:

• What makes the “Copenhagen, All Inclusive” strategy a leading example of destination management today.
• Why Copenhagen wants to stoke competition with other destinations through this strategy.
• About the huge gap between sustainable intentions and actions among travellers.
• Why one destination decided not to promote tourism in the summer anymore, and how the local tourism industry responded.

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Show notes

Banff & Lake Louise Tourism — The destination marketing organization for the communities of Banff and Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada.

Copenhagen, All Inclusive — The new destination management strategy for Copenhagen’s tourism 2024-2030.

CopenPay — An  initiative that rewards eco-friendly actions with access to cultural and recreational experiences in Copenhagen. 

Thompson-Okanagan Tourism Association — The regional destination management organizations for the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. 

Travel Marquette — The Marquette County Convention and Visitors Bureau in Michigan, USA.

Wonderful Copenhagen —  The official tourism organization of the Capital Region of Denmark.

Episode transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been lightly reviewed for accuracy.

Rikke Holm Petersen: We believe that tourism has superpowers that go far beyond experiences, accommodation, and revenue. We are part of the climate problem, but we also believe and work towards being an essential part of the solution in the future.

David Archer: Welcome back to Travel Beyond, where we partner with leading destinations to bring you inspiring solutions to the greatest challenges facing communities and the planet. I’m David Archer from Destination Think, recording from Haida Gwaii, the territory of the Haida Nation off the north coast of British Columbia in Canada.

On this show, we look at the role of travel and choose to highlight destinations that are global leaders. We talk to the change makers who are addressing regenerative travel through action in their communities, and often from the bottom up, and we are actively looking for the best examples of efforts to regenerate economies, communities, and ecosystems.

So you can reach me if you have a story like that to share at davidatdestinationthink.com. And. I’d also recommend checking out our 100 Travel Innovations project for some examples of what I’m talking about. These are bite sized stories of solutions led by the travel industry, and you can find those at innovate.destinationthink.com. Today, we’re sharing a condensed version of a special event that we presented a few weeks ago in November, 2024. It was a live webinar called recognizing travels, all inclusive impact on your destination. How Copenhagen’s tourism strategy is leading the way forward. And as we heard in that presentation, there is a lot that other destinations can learn from Copenhagen’s new strategy.

And here you’ll hear Rikke Holm Peterson from Wonderful Copenhagen talk about the strategy’s three goals and the actions behind them. And also what makes this strategy, quote, all inclusive in the first place and why that was necessary. Our cast of speakers all came from the Destination Think Collective, which is a growing group of very ambitious destinations and their leaders who care about the future of travel and the planet.

In addition to Rikke, our guests were moderated by Leslie Bruce, the president and CEO at Banff and Lake Louise Tourism, and two panelists, Susan Estler, the CEO at Travel Marquette, and Ellen Walker Matthews, CEO at Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association, also known as TOTA. All four of our speakers discussed how to apply the lessons learned from this strategy in their destinations, so let’s stick around and listen in on the event, beginning with a few words from Leslie Bruce.

Leslie Bruce: It’s a hard job for any of us who’ve been spending time in this space, and we realize in Banff and Lake Louise that we actually don’t have very much control, but we have a lot of influence with climate impacts, making things more unpredictable. We really need to talk intelligently about what this means and find ways really to reconcile the paradox of inspiring guests to experience places and learn.

While also leaving a footprint that includes discussing tourism’s full impacts on the destination, both positive and negative. That means environmental, sociocultural, and economic. And to be honest, these true impacts are not often well understood. We still have to work really hard to help our community understand the importance of tourism on our community well being.

Interestingly, the conversation now has shifted. The narrative is more about sociocultural assets and how tourism enriches the opportunities for residents and has really shifted away from that sole approach around economic impact. Conversations around climate are definitely more frequent in our community and are more pressing as we navigate challenges with outdoor events and attractions in a nature based destination.

We’re really asking ourselves, not only how do we need to adapt, but what can we do to play a more important role in finding solutions? On World Tourism Day in September 2024, Wonderful Copenhagen released its newest destination strategy, called Copenhagen All Inclusive. It brings travel’s complex challenges, uh, related to climate and social impact to the forefront, and it gives their destination a compass it can use to steer in the right direction.

It truly embraces the positive and negative aspects of tourism, engage, and engages guests and residents alike. As you listen to the presentation, please think about how some of these ideas can be applied in your destination. And now, it is my pleasure to introduce my colleague from the Destination Think Collective.

Rikke Holm Petersen is the Director of Communication, Marketing, and Behavior at Wonderful Copenhagen. Bringing over 15 years of leadership experience in marketing, branding, digital transformation, and consumer experience. Known for launching major brands and leading the digitalization of Denmark’s largest public authority, Rikke is a former lecturer at Copenhagen Business School and a multiple award winner celebrated for fostering motivating work cultures and driving innovative, high impact results.

Please join me in welcoming Rikke. 

Rikke Holm Petersen: And thank you so much for joining this session. One of the things we love in Wonderful Copenhagen is actually being capable of talking to all of you even though it’s virtual. Um, so I prepared a presentation on our new strategy which I will share with you now. Recently we launched a new strategy that’s called Copenhagen Um, and it’s a strategy for tourism in the capital of Denmark, and it’s a six year, um, period strategy we’ve made.

And we talked a lot about what the strategy should be called, and we ended up with Copenhagen All Inclusive. And Leslie just touched a little bit upon that. Uh, but the reason why we chose that is that when we talk about the effects of today’s tourism, they are far from all inclusive. As we all know, tourism leaves a negative CO2 footprint and it contributes to the climate challenges that we aim to defeat or we are trying to defeat right now.

But of course it also offers a lot more positive social value than what can be observed from or through occupancy and revenue figures. And so one of the things we wanted to do, I wanted to do with this strategy, is to shoot light on tourism’s actual contributions to society and the world, both its positive and negative aspects, but also its direct and indirect effects.

And that’s why we ended up calling our new strategy Copenhagen All Inclusive. The UN, EU, Denmark and Copenhagen have set ambitious climate goals. And we want Copenhagen’s tourism to promote the realization of these goals because we believe that tourism has superpowers that go far beyond experiences, accommodation, and revenue.

What you see here is our vision, um, and I actually think it’s an extremely bold vision, because we want tourism. Our tourism should make the world a better destination, as it says here. And tourism is an industry that affects people and the planet in both, uh, really good ways, but also in bad ways. As I just said, we are part of the climate problem.

But we also believe and work towards being an essential part of the solution in the future. Tourism is an extremely powerful resource, um, and I would say we really have a responsibility to use it right and use it. It has a potential to change the world for the better, both as an industry, livelihood and activity for millions of people.

It has an inherent power and strength to create a better world. That’s why we ended up on this. And normally, I don’t know how it is in your destinations, but some of the things, when I started out here, I started almost two years ago, we talked a lot about, uh, bed nights, how many people would come here, revenue as well, and now, um, we’ve just moved beyond that, uh, of course, it, it’s a big part of the way we do things here in Copenhagen, but we need to look even broader to other meaningful ways.

Um, one of the things I love is figures. And when we look at the numbers, tourism accounts for nearly 8 percent of global CO2 emissions. Yeah, 8%. That’s a lot. And when we look at the numbers of international arrivals, arrivals, they are, uh, predicted to reach 1.8 billion by 2030. So that’s a lot. And in 2019 it was 1.4 billion, so now going up to 1.8 billion.

So we will, as we go ahead, we will just look into a bigger problem if we don’t do anything. Which is why action is more important than ever. Um, and we want tourism to be a force for positive change rather than an environmental burden. Um, another thing is also short, uh, uh, one of the things we’re thinking is that tourism should also create, uh, enriching encounters between locals and visitors.

Goals that are extremely crucial if we want to address these urgent challenges related to both climate change, but for sure also to climate change over tourism, but people will travel and the UN numbers shows that it, we will keep on traveling and we will be traveling even more. So how can we go about that and make it more sustainable?

So our aim is to make our guests feel enriched by our daily lives and values when they come to Copenhagen. We want, um, uh, guests to experience that we inspire the positive impact on them. So they should, yeah, be inspired, um, and take some of the things home with them that they experienced in Copenhagen.

So we aim to give our guests the best versions of ourselves, of course, so they return home motivated, healthier, and with a desire to do more. And I’ll show you an example of some of, one of the things we did this summer is a really good example of that, that how do we actually do that in, in practice. We have three goals.

The first one is tourism in Copenhagen should accelerate the cooling transition locally and globally. The the second goal is tourism creates enriching encounters and lasting value. And the third one is tourism in Copenhagen should create larger socio economic value for more people. And I’ll go through all of the goals, uh, just briefly.

Um, this is the first goal, uh, we have here. Our goal is for tourism in Copenhagen to contribute to solving the global climate crisis rather than exacerbating it. Um, and we need to take concrete, um, and ambitious steps to reduce climate footprint. One of the things we, um, we’ve done or one of the goals is that we have developed a climate, uh, roadmap for Copenhagen’s tourism with all inclusive measures.

I talked to some other destinations that didn’t include transportation too. The destination, um, and we all know transportation. That’s, that’s the big one out there. So we really need to include transportation when we make a climate roadmap. Otherwise, we don’t include the negative parts. So this roadmap sets the directions for how Copenhagen tourism can reach important emission reductions by 2030.

And 2035 towards becoming more climate neutral by 2050 at the latest. Another thing is that we want to be the world’s leading sustainable destination, contributing to the international competition to achieve this status. So it’s not about winning. It’s about firing up so that more destinations will will improve themselves.

So we can create a better destination as a vision says, and the last thing is that we want we want to inspire guests to make more notable and lasting sustainable choices. 

David Archer: Hi, it’s David again on that last note, making lasting sustainable choices. Wonderful Copenhagen is doing a lot to try and shift traveler behavior.

Rikke had told us that tourism research shows there is a huge gap between intention and action when it comes to sustainability. Most people want to act sustainably, but not everyone knows how to, or has the opportunity to. So to close the gap, wonderful Copenhagen has begun a new program called which Rikke explains here.

Rikke Holm Petersen: We had two goals with the initiative. One was to inspire to a greener mindset and behavior among travelers. That was the first one. And the second one was raise awareness of Copenhagen as a sustainable destination. And then I’ll just have you remind our mission again. It’s not about telling all the good things about Copenhagen to attract people to Copenhagen.

No, it’s about people being here, getting a souvenir, imagine if people would start biking because they tried it in Copenhagen when they go home, for instance, just to say, just to give an example. So it’s about having a window where we can show how we live, the sustainable solutions we have in Copenhagen for the inspiration of others.

So that’s, um, that’s how you should see it. The concept you can see here briefly. Um, if you look down into the right corner, this was the communication we did. So we wrote, Dear Tourist, enjoy Copenhagen attractions through climate friendly actions. And then there was a QR code that they could, yeah, use. And then they would go to a website, uh, where they could try it out.

What we did was we turned sustainability into a currency and called that CopenPay. And on the one hand, we encourage people to, yeah, to do something sustainable. So that could be bike to an attraction. It could be working in an urban garden, urban gardening. It could be picking up litter. Sustainable actions.

And for each of the attractions that were part of this initiative, they had all defined what should you do at that attraction and what was on the opposite hand, what would you get as a reward. So, for instance, if you wanted to collect litter, then you could get a free kayak tour because you would do the litter picking in the, in the canals.

Um, or if you work in an urban garden, you would get a free vegetarian lunch, et cetera. So you have to do one thing on the one hand, and then you would be rewarded on the other hand. 

David Archer: At this point, Rikke then showed us a video all about how CopenPay worked, and you’ll be able to see that through a link in the show notes.

And she went on to tell us about the Net Zero Climate Roadmap, which you can see in the strategy itself, again linked in the show notes. One important piece here is that Wonderful Copenhagen is not just counting emissions created after people arrive, but they’re also counting emissions from transportation to the destination.

This is another way you might say they are being all inclusive and trying to look at the true picture of tourism’s impact. Okay, back to the webinar. 

Rikke Holm Petersen: It’s clear if it raises, if we get even more tourists, we need to be even more ambitious, uh, when we look at this. So it’s hard work, and we don’t have the answers yet, but we’ve set up a really ambitious roadmap, I would say.

Uh, moving on to goal two, uh, tourism creates enriching encounters and lasting value. And one of the things I love about tourism is that it has a unique ability to bring together people from different backgrounds. And our goal in Copenhagen, uh, for Copenhagen tourism is to be a catalyst list for these enriching encounters.

Encounters that foster inclusion, tolerance, and new knowledge. And then we want another thing that’s important to say is that we want guests to become part of our community and participate as temporary citizens. We can learn from them when they come here, all the guests that come here, and they should also be inspired and bring back a piece of Copenhagen with them. Imagine all the Copenhageners, if they would just take viking home with them, that would be amazing, for instance. That’s why we say, and this is our brand, stand as well, don’t just come here, be come here. And when you look at the sub goals we have, we also have three sub goals here.

One is create more and better encounters between locals and visitors. And I would say Copenhagen was an extremely good example of that because it was both for visitors and locals and we saw in many of the attractions they would mix together, they talk together, which was so neat to see. Then we have a sub world too, so when, when the world gathers in Copenhagen, uh, it should serve as a catalyst for lasting local, local and global value.

We also have a lot of B2B business where with that, um, how can we make. Not only a Congress, but make more impact in regards of, uh, not economic parameters, but social parameters. And then we have sub goal three, where we aim to encourage guests to stay longer, to strengthen learning, education, and cultural exchange.

And, of course, that sub goal also emphasizes or, or, yeah, the, the whole sustainability, uh, thing. So, if you don’t travel that much, but you stay longer, you will get to know the culture even better, and you will, will reduce, uh, your traveling. That would be amazing as well. The last goal, goal three, is tourism in Copenhagen should create larger socio economic value.

And we want, uh, Copenhagen’s tourism industry to support the local economy, of course, and uplift, uh, local businesses and initiatives. Like, I think many of you also are already working on, um, we also want to create value for culture and the rural areas of greater Copenhagen region, which we work with a lot.

We have three, the subset, three sub goals, uh, for that goal as well. Uh, one is, uh, through tourism, we aim to make the capital region more attractive year round for both residents and visitors, thus creating greater socio economic value. Every hotel, uh, in January and February in Copenhagen, every second, sorry, every second room in our hotels in these months is available.

So not booked, meaning that, um, the hotels, they struggle a lot with, uh, with hiring staff because they don’t have any work in January and February, basically. So we really want to, um, improve that and we work a lot on attracting and making Copenhagen more attractive in these months. That’s one thing.

Another thing is also making Copenhagen a lot more vivid in these months, also for, for the local, um, uh, society. And the second goal is being to improve service nation’s tourism contributions to local economies, just like I said. And the last one is, is, is really important, I would say as well, is to strengthen tourism as an employment engine and support its social responsibility.

One of the things we see is that the staff in the hotels, they aren’t that well educated, but that’s one of the industries where they have less educated people. So people are the princess of the labor market. They actually work in, in tourism, which is a really good thing for Denmark as a whole. And then I’m getting to the end.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, saying a lot, um, to help us understand the broader societal value of Copenhagen’s tourism, we’ve developed, uh, a new tourism compass, and you mentioned that as well, Leslie, so we call it the Copenhagen compass, and it represents the key components of the broader value that we want to create and which we will navigate by in the future.

And you can see the model here or the compass here. So we have six dimension. I’m not going to go through all of it, but six dimensions that are important to mention people, of course. Social, uh, of course, innovation, socioeconomic, city life, and environment, um, taking up this context. In the middle, you have the tourism impact, and then you have Copenhagen, then you have Denmark, and then you have the world.

And this is how we navigate and work, uh, with each of, of, of these aspects of a model. And it just got out of our strategy, so now we are, we will try and unfold and execute all of the things we can do. 

Leslie Bruce: Amazing. Thank you so much. Virtual applause from the audience. That was really, really wonderful. One of the things that I really value about the Destination Think Collective is how openly people are willing to share with the idea that we can help, you know, transfer or spark these ideas globally.

And I’m very inspired by your commitment, not only to impacting Copenhagen locally, but how that connects to the world. And so one of the things that really, um, piqued my curiosity is related to the development of your strategy and very, very clearly calling out both the negatives and the positives of tourism.

And I love how you framed some of your statements to help be clear around the force for good and we have to acknowledge some of those challenges. Were there any reactions when you either were developing this with stakeholders or starting to socialize the strategy? Were there any reactions from your community or from your industry to the fact that you were discussing and sharing both the negatives and the positives?

Rikke Holm Petersen: Actually positive, I would say. Of course, if I was a hotel, if I’m a hotel partner, of course, they are, they’re looking at regularly. They’re looking at bed nights, are their hotels booked, et cetera. But again, when we talk to hotels, for instance, they can also see about, um, the problem with the, with Q1, with January and February, we don’t have anyone there.

So they need to sort of fire people, hire again. And so I would say that they all sort of see the flip side of the things, the hardcore figures, the hardcore numbers, and the flip side of it, when you need to look at. Yeah, a lot of value, um, more social value, environmental aspects, etc. 

Leslie Bruce: Amazing. Thank you. Now we’ll, uh, flip over to our panelists, and we’re joined by two other colleagues from The Collective.

Susan Estler, the CEO of Travel Marquette. She’s a destination marketing executive with over 20 years of experience. Lending business expertise and a creative mindset to craft impactful solutions and optimize brand visibility. We’re also joined by Ellen Walker Matthews. Uh, she’s the Chief Executive Officer of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association.

She has over 40 years of expertise in the hospitality, travel and tourism industry, including senior and regional roles at top hospitality companies. One of the key elements to the Destination Think Collective is that we aim to share and spread solutions faster and more effectively. To this end, I’m going to ask the panel to help us discuss some of the elements of the strategy and how they think it can be applied and what solutions are happening in their destination given your destinations current challenges.

And if you don’t mind when you address this, frame them up briefly. How can you apply lessons from the Copenhagen strategy at home? Maybe I’ll go to Susan first, please. 

Susan Estler: Well, I would have to say that climate and sustainable leadership, the green transition, um, definitely resonates with us. Uh, we have implemented Leave No Trace to kind of jumpstart our program. Um, we found that by using a program that was in existence and something that was familiar to many of the people, most of our travelers are from the U. S., mostly Michigan, Wisconsin, you know, local area in Chicago area. So many were familiar with Leave No Trace and we use that to jumpstart our program and then community leadership.

We implemented, um, Respect Marquette County Coalition. So we have 30 active partners and all are welcome. If someone is interested in participating as much or as little as they would like. Resident. Um, business owner, whatever it is, they’re welcome. And so we have quarterly meetings and they actually help to guide us as far as our directions that we’re going.

Leslie Bruce: Amazing. Thank you. And Ellen, same question to you. Given your destination’s current challenges, how can you apply the lessons from Copenhagen Strategy at home, or CopenPay for that matter? 

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Well, certainly, you know, it’s always interesting to listen to the international perspective, um, and then realize how much it touches home, right?

We face so many similar challenges. When you talk about the accommodators and not having business in January and February, I would say you know, our, our challenge in our region had been and, and remains so much of our business comes in 45 to 90 days and it’s just, it’s just not sustainable to have it all come in the summertime.

We were getting better. We’ve been on this journey since 2010. We’ve been very committed to sustainability. We did a lot of work in community. Prior to 2010 and 2012 when our, our regional strategy was launched, and we heard directly from our businesses that they didn’t want tourism for tourism sake. They didn’t know the word sustainability yet.

That was a little bit new to what, you know, they understood, but they did know how to say what they didn’t want. And so we’ve definitely been on that journey of trying to figure out how to make it much more of a year round destination, um, and really get away from focusing on that limited period in the summertime.

So that that really resonates with with what we’re doing for sure. 

Leslie Bruce: All three of you, as we shift into a greater focus on destination management, as we recognize that our role is not only to generate economic impact, but to do it in a balanced way with climate and community in mind, what kind of KPIs are you using, or perhaps even considering using?

So how will you measure these new ways of evaluating the contribution and impact of tourism? Maybe I’ll start with Rikke. Did you, did you contemplate this and have you got, got that in behind your strategy? What have you learned there or what are you contemplating? That it was difficult. Yeah. 

Rikke Holm Petersen: Actually, really, no, because you need to look at it in another way, but also the climate roadmap, just to take that as an example, where you set ambitious goals and we need to measure everything.

That, that, that’s new as well. If we take Copenhagen as well, then, you know, the, the third goal, sub goal we have, we want to inspire to a new mindset. How do we make sure that we actually inspire? We can say we inspire, but do people actually do it when they go home? How do you measure that? Because then you need to sort of post measure before and afterwards, three months afterwards when they go home.

So, I would say, just to give you some examples, you need to, to have new thinking about it. So, just it’s going to be difficult because new ways, it’s not like you can look it up and look at records, but you can look at the whole map, because we have already solved those figures. 

Leslie Bruce: Yeah. I couldn’t agree more on that challenge.

Ellen or Susan, is there anything that you could share maybe tangibly or concretely? I know, um, TOTA has done a really great job, uh, in terms of measuring things at a more, um, holistic level. And I think you’re in Canada, certainly ahead of the game when it comes to some of those measures. Is there anything that you could share in terms of advice or, we’re even just sharing the things that you’re measuring.

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Yeah, and I, again, I, I applaud Rikke. It’s a difficult, it’s a difficult challenge. So, you know, we’re, we’re measuring a number of things. We’re, we’re a biosphere certified destination. We have been since 2017, and we have a commitment program for our stakeholders. And so we’re using, uh, you know, the 17 SDGs and working with our, uh, individual businesses on, on their walking through all of those SDGs and applying them to their business models.

And I would say, tremendous uptake in people wanting to be not only committed these days, but certified. So initially we brought people in rather gently, you know, hoping and encouraging them and helping them to understand what the opportunity was. But we’re really starting to see that businesses want to do more and more, which is tremendous.

Again, measuring one of our measurements with the seasonality challenge is certainly measuring dispersion. And understanding better where the visitor is moving towards. And that is definitely, you know, certainly a measure of success. If we can move them out of the summer months into that fall and spring.

But of course, lots of measurement in, in the carbon footprint. You know, all of the arrivals, our airline partners working with them on, on carbon emissions and controls. All of those things are being measured, but it’s a challenge for sure. It’s a difficult one. 

Leslie Bruce: Susan, any other insight you would share in terms of some of the things you’re considering measuring?

Susan Estler: Yeah, definitely. One of the things that we did with our coalition, um, was look at different pain points. We have the largest county within the state of Michigan. So, a lot of territory, only 66, 000 is our permanent population with 8,000 students, um, from Northern Michigan University. So what we did, we have a couple different measurements that we use.

Placer AI is a service, um, Datify is another service, Smith Travel Research, and for short term rentals we use Lighthouse. What we did was determine with the coalition, those areas that we’re just seeing too many people and those areas that we would like to see more people in their neighboring communities to the city of Marquette that are interested in finding out more, um, information.

You know, other places to go besides sending everybody to three places, so we’ve noticed that we are actually moving the needle, um, in some of the areas that we have a couple of places that definitely need some help. Another thing that we’ve been interestingly found out was the fact that that we have some areas where 60 percent of the people who are going to these locations that they consider too populated.

Are actually locals who are going there and a large majority of people who are coming to the destination actually are visiting friends and family and staying with friends and family. So this clearly indicates that this isn’t tourism issue. It’s a matter of educating locals as well as to other locations they can go to.

And, you know, locals enjoy nice weather as well. Another thing is, um, improved seasonality. We’ve noticed with climate change. Winter is a very important season for us. We don’t hibernate. We recreate here in Marquette and, um. So we have a dog sled race, we have a ski marathon, those type of things, which were cut short, especially the dog sled race, by not having appropriate snow, uh, last year and the year before.

In one way, it has made the winter season harder to navigate, because we just don’t know about snow. That’s been the past couple years. But on the other hand, it’s extended our spring and fall season. Here in Marquette, spring is kind of like a hot minute in April and that’s about it. And then all of a sudden the trees bloom and that’s, then you’re into summer.

So, we’ve noticed that we actually have a spring too. So those are some of the things that we’re looking at and how our events change and the different things like arts and culture, indoor activities. 

Leslie Bruce: Thanks for sharing those, Susan. Something that I picked up from each of you in this conversation and in listening is the role of behavior modification in our organizations now.

Like, how are we shifting behavior, whether that’s encouraging guests to behave differently in destination, picking up garbage while they kayak, or shifting seasons and contemplating coming at a different time of year. That’s a good question. 

Rikke Holm Petersen: I think, um, actually just having my title change. I think that’s a good way of seeing it because before I was Marketing Director, Communication and Marketing Director, now I’m Director for Marketing, Communication and Behavior.

Just to say that. So that’s one thing actually. I think the notching path or the pager path is extremely important because for some of you as well, I would assume all of the destinations, you don’t want people to come at one time during the year again. You don’t want the massive people. And if the massive people are coming, how can you spread them around?

How can you disperse them around? So I would also say, it also says in our strategy, it’s not about marketing anymore, in my opinion. It’s about doing it more wisely and spreading people. And so, so the whole society and the whole community can, uh, can gain from it. So, how we, where CopenPay was really, I, that’s the first initiative we’ve really done half.

We’ve done dispersal, uh, campaigns in our city, uh, twice. But we did the second level. We sort of had billboards out in the city where we say, So, take the train here, 20 minutes out here. It’s doing something new. So we have done it, but we’ve started recently doing it. 

Rikke Holm Petersen: But I really think that’s one of the keys that this nation should look into.

We all have problems with either too many people at one point or too many people in the same place or whatever. So behavior is essential. 

Leslie Bruce: Thank you. It’s interesting because we do all have similar problems, and yet our contexts are so different. So it’s how do we apply what you may have learned there to what’s happening in, you know, Marquette or the Okanagan.

And I really, yeah, I really value your openness to sharing how you’re advancing that. Ellen or Susan, any, any thoughts on on how you and your DMO are operating with respect to this need to really think about behavior modification, any, any insights, or even if you’re not there, what are you, what are you contemplating in order to decide if you should invest to head in that direction?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Yeah, I think our focus has really been on destination development and experiences, and those experiences are outside of traditional period. So that’s something that we work very closely with the communities on and the province, our crown, we’ve got a new program launching called Iconics, which will launch internationally.

A couple of them have launched already, but they’ll sort of launch in 2026, and it’s directing and mostly the international market, but there’ll be some domestic that will just happen because of it to those other places to those other routes that are less traveled. We stopped marketing summer back in 2010.

We have not had any focus on on summer at all. It is all been around dispersion and creating new experiences. And we really did see that curve change when we did that. We right up until covid. We saw a tremendous movement of people into that fall and spring period. 

Leslie Bruce: Thanks, Ellen. Susan, anything you’d offer in terms of your, your thoughts on behavior modification and how that will affect your future.

Sure. 

Susan Estler: Yeah, I, one of the things that we’ve been doing is trying to get into the schools to educate young, educate the local students. So, we’ve been working with, uh, educators who are, or potential, or future educators at Northern Michigan University. Um, too, when we get the students coming in from Northern Michigan, Northern Michigan University as well.

They tend to be like boundless puppies out in the open and they’re excited to be here and we’re excited that they’re here, but we also, uh, like to make sure that they have proper instructions. So we have a brief video that is now included in their orientation, uh, to help them. We have one of our team members on the Northern Michigan Society of Sustainable, uh, committee that they have at the university, just trying to really integrate and make sure that we are part of the conversation.

Um, and Rikke, I really like, uh, goal number two, tourism creates enriching encounters and lasting values. And we kind of took what. That idea was and are implementing experiences with locals, so it’s a really grassroots effort, having people going out with the green city running group, having people going out on the Wednesday road team, they invite visitors out as well.

We have an ambassadors pro trail program, and in the winter we have their Wednesday trail rides. And also curling Sundays and drop in hockey nights. So, just trying to integrate so that people, it’s not us versus them, it’s that people really realize that everybody enjoys being here. I’ve never been in a destination that people have enjoyed more than Marquette.

Leslie Bruce: Love it. Thank you. I’ve got some questions now from the audience. Uh, this one is for Ellen. How did your destination partners and businesses and stakeholders react to the organization not promoting summer anymore? How did you arrive at that decision? 

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Well, it was a pretty easy one. Again, I go back to all the work that we did in 2010.

Um, my former CEO led that and it was going out to the communities and having, um, one on one workshops with both residents and stakeholders, tourism stakeholders. And it really came from them. It came from their conversation with us about not wanting to have more visitors for visitation sake. What was going to make a difference to their business was not having to, I like to say, pedal uphill all summer and then slide down after the summer was over.

They couldn’t sustain that. They couldn’t sustain staff. They couldn’t sustain, you know, chefs in the restaurant industry. So they were the ones asking to expand the season. They were the ones asking for different experiences and really encouraged us to do things differently. So, I don’t, it’s interesting, but I think the timing was right for us.

And because it came from the grassroots, it came to us, it was a lot easier to broadly sell that idea. 

Leslie Bruce: Thanks, Ellen. We’ve been on a journey similar to that in Banff National Park. And I think for us one of the key things has been, in order to allocate enough resources to make a difference in winter, it also has been a very practical decision.

We need to shift resources from summer to winter in order to make that difference. Um, so thanks for helping pave the path for that conversation for us here in Banff. Appreciate it. We’re getting close to the end here and so I have a rapid fire question for all of you. I want you to imagine that a genie comes out of a bottle and offers three wishes.

You each get one wish. Tell me what would you do tomorrow to fast track your sustainability agenda? Rapid fire. Just go for it. Give me what comes off the top of your head. 

Susan Estler: I would have to say just having a platform or several platforms to get the message out to locals, um, on what it is that we’re doing.

Everybody listens to different things and since media is so fractured, it’s just really difficult and then, you know, the negativity and trying to get out of that pattern, so it’s kind of like, two wishes, but nice.

Leslie Bruce: I think you bundled it. Well, I think they’re granted. Thank you.

Ellen Walker-Matthews:  I would like to see all of our stakeholders on board at the same time.

So you’re saying it’s a wish. So there it is. They were all I’ll be participating. 

Leslie Bruce: Right on. That would be a dream come true within it because it does take a collective effort. I, I apologize to those whose questions I didn’t get to, um, but we are so grateful for your engagement today. Thank you to all of the panelists, Rikke, Ellen, Susan.

Thank you not only for being here today, but for the work that you do at home, and your commitment to making this work matter globally. I think in closing, it continues to inspire me to get up and keep at it and keep trying.

David Archer: This has been Travel Beyond presented by Destination Think. And you just heard Leslie Bruce, Rikke Holm Peterson, Susan Estler, and Ellen Walker Matthews. For more resources and show notes, visit our website at DestinationThink.com. This episode was produced and has theme music composed by me, David Archer.

Sarah Raymond de Booy, my co producer, Lindsay Payne, Jamie Sterling, and Cory Price provided production support. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to give us a five star rating. It helps more people find the show, and we’ll be back next time, so talk to you again soon.