Are your destination’s visitors its best marketers? During his talk and panel discussion at the 2015 Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) Congress in Ottawa, Canada, Destination Think CEO Rodney Payne described the future of destination marketing and the end-to-end customer experience for destinations.

“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,” he said, drawing from years of experience, observations and many industry sources that outline the factors shaping destination marketing today. Word of mouth marketing is a critical area of focus and the industry is taking action to adapt to changing consumer behaviour.

Keep up with the industry – we’ve done the reading for you

To explore today’s landscape further, read this list of helpful links related to some of the topics that Rodney discussed in his presentation. These ten valuable resources illustrate the large-scale disruption your destination marketing organization is likely facing. Click to read below, or bookmark this page for future study.

• A Harvard Business Review article explaining that customer loyalty is fundamentally linked to future business growth
• The DestinationNEXT report from Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) that explains three transformational opportunities for destination marketing organizations and many helpful “Next Practices” around consumer engagement
• A brilliant Tnooz interview with digital marketing analyst/Altimeter Group principal Brian Solis, explaining how the travel marketing funnel is broken
• Mashable‘s explanation of the difference between traditional promotion (outbound marketing) and consumer engagement (inbound marketing)
• Destination Think’s model that explains the new operating environment for destinations
• A presentation from Heidi Sørvig, CEO of Visit Sørlandet at a tourism marketing conference, explaining their matter-of-fact approach to destination marketing through industry collaboration and an interview with her afterwards
• Another presentation from the conference where Digital Media Manager of Amsterdam Marketing, Charel van Dam explains Amsterdam’s marketing strategy and how effective the iAmsterdam signs have been in stimulating online advocacy
• A case study on Tourism Richmond’s brilliant #Richmond365 campaign; focused on word of mouth, niche marketing, advocacy and content marketing
• A presentation from Simpleview Summit 2016 by Destination Think’s Chief Strategist William Bakker on measuring success in the new marketing world
• The Potential on Investment whitepaper, a collaboration with six DMOs to help measure the value of social media activities

For even more info from the panel at the 2015 TIAC Congress:

• Skift wrote a piece on Tourisme Montréal setting the new blueprint for destination marketing
• Tourisme Montréal‘s vice-president of marketing Emanuelle Legault spoke about their work at the 2013 Social Media Tourism Symposium conference near Sydney. Here’s an interview with Emmanuelle after her presentation.
• David Peacock, CEO of RTO4 Inc., has presented their work and the importance of UX and enabling consumer engagement.
• Destination British Columbia have shared their corporate strategy online.
• Here’s an interview with Leah Poulton, social media manager from Destination British Columbia after her presentation at a destination marketing conference in Nashville
• Here’s a link to a panel where some of Europe’s leading destination marketers offer advice on ‘How to Guide your DMO into the Future’

Watch Rodney’s presentation on “The future of destination marketing” below:

Featured image credit: Jose Carlos Machado, Flickr