Overview

Dear colleagues,

There is refreshed excitement around travel. More than trips, visitors seek experiences connecting them to the world and themselves. DestinationiQ, which manages every aspect of a region’s tourism needs (marketing included), is committed to showing visitors how traveling to your region brings these moments to life.

Turning commitment into reality is never a walk in the park. Even the most ambitious tourism directors grapple with three formidable foes: time, expertise, and funding. It is a trio that packs a punch, creating a sizable gap for destinations—the space between where they are now and where they have the potential to be.

The tourism industry’s evolution is widening the gap. Today, tourism directors are called on to do more than simply promote a destination. They need to develop strong stakeholder and community engagement strategies, build deep knowledge of tax law, create immersive experiences, and so much more. They are asked to do all of this with the same amount of, or sometimes fewer, resources. To manage a successful and sustainable destination and keep from burning out personally and professionally, tourism directors need simple answers.

At DestinationiQ, we understand the challenges of building a thriving destination. Despite the hurdles, we know it is possible. With the right strategies and resources, tourism directors can unlock their destination’s full potential. In this white paper, Bridging the Gap: A Tourism Director’s Road Map to Overcoming Time, Expertise, and Funding Challenges, we explore the challenges contributing to the gap locations feel, how it holds destinations back, and what directors of tourism can do to bridge the gap. Reading this white paper, tourism directors can better understand the daily stress they feel and find answers that will enable them to chart a course toward a future where their destination thrives.

Bryan Jordan
President and CEO

Lindsay Diamond
Account Director

3 Elements That Cause The Gap

Currently, destinations are in a unique position. Many are experiencing a natural growth in tourism, welcoming visitors to enjoy everything their region has to offer. Managing those visitors and building a sustainable and successful tourism program requires time, expertise, and funding. While many destinations cover one or two of these areas, few have all three, creating a gap between where they are and where they want to go. 

Below, we will explore each of these areas to see what is creating the challenges.

Challenge 1: Too Little Time

Staffing 

Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) are often run primarily by one staff member, volunteers, or retirees. Passionate and committed people are great assets. The challenge here is without people dedicated full-time to managing and growing tourism, opportunities are limited.

Additionally, there may be a mismatch between the expectations of a tourism commission and the size of the staff available to carry out those visions. It is great to have grand visions of what is possible, but there needs to be enough arms and legs to bring ideas to reality. 

Broad set of responsibilities

When a DMO is fortunate to have paid staff, too often, only one person is left to run the whole show. That staff member has to do everything from marketing and community engagement to grant writing. Having to do so many things leaves little time to do any of them well.

Keeping multiple stakeholders happy

From the general public and county tourism boards to elected officials, there are many people invested in tourism for a single destination. Tourism directors often have to answer to all of them. Balancing and prioritizing needs while keeping everyone happy can take up a lot of time and make it challenging to advance strategic initiatives.

Competing priorities

The tourism industry is changing quickly, creating competing priorities for tourism directors. A few of the top challenges pulling directors and tourism boards in different directions are:

• Identifying, responding to, and meeting the needs of diverse requests from the community
• Marketing tactics that seem endless and endlessly changing with every pitch and proposal promising their solution is the best
• Changes in how tourism efforts are funded within a particular destination

Challenge 2: Inadequate Expertise

Just as there are more things to do as a tourism director, there are more things to know. The amount of expertise needed to be an effective tourism director can be a challenge that is difficult to navigate because of:

Lack of formal training 

Unfortunately, there are no formal training programs to prepare a tourism director for the numerous variables and unforeseen challenges they face. Moreover, every destination is unique, so there is no blueprint for becoming a proficient director of tourism. For people interested in building their skills, webinars, workshops, or even listening to podcasts can feel like one more thing to stuff onto an already full plate.

Small staff sizes 

Tourism directors are often working with limited resources. Shockingly, approximately 25% of state tourism offices operate with a staff of 10 or less for the entire state.¹ At the county level, most destinations are lucky to have one paid position. In such a small-team environment, expertise development becomes an even greater challenge. Without a dedicated expert for each aspect of destination management, one person is expected to fill multiple roles simultaneously, adding complexity to their already demanding responsibilities.

Growing set of responsibilities

As tourism continues to grow beyond heads in beds and marketing, focusing also on creating sustainable and responsible experiences for visitors for instance, directors of tourism are expected to do more and know more. Being a tourism director requires a unique skill set, blending marketing, community engagement, strategic planning, and business operations. In any other industry, these would all be separate roles, each requiring someone to have years of education.

A day in the life of a tourism director (a partial list)

Challenge 3: Lack of Funding

Funding for the tourism industry continues to evolve every year. Understanding the dynamics of where and how to get funding can help destinations open up their potential. Tourism funding sources are rarely clear. Discovering those opportunities and understanding which are appropriate is challenging.

Increasing costs

In the past 5 years, state tourism funding has increased by 20%.¹  That is good news for tourism offices! But, costs are increasing too.² Importantly, national averages do not always tell the full story. As more visitors seek out less-populated rural areas, budgets in those areas are not keeping up. 

Budget cuts have a lasting impact 

Tourism is not always a priority for state funding. When legislators decide to cut budgets for tourism for even just a few years, it can have an impact that lasts decades. In 1993, Colorado cut its tourism budget and lost over $30 billion in visitor spending.³ It took over 15 years for the state to regain a foothold in the tourism industry.³ 

Complicated grants and tax policies

Applying for grants or using local tax policies can help destinations tap into available funding. The challenge is that tax policies are complicated, making them one more area of expertise tourism directors have to develop in order to grow. Grants can also be complex and time-consuming to complete. Plus, requirements like matching the amount received with local funds prevent smaller destinations from even applying.

How to Bridge the Gap

The gap in tourism created by time, expertise, and funding can stand in the way of a destination building a path to success and sustainability. Addressing even one or two of these gaps can aid responsible tourism and effective destination management. When all three are addressed, there is no limit to the potential of a destination to drive economic prosperity and positive growth for its community. In the following pages, we will discuss ways you can overcome the challenges of time, expertise, and funding.

How to Reclaim Your Time

Solution 1: Manage expectations

If competing priorities from various stakeholders are eating away at your time, start by managing expectations. Often external stakeholders, including elected officials and funders, do not understand all that it takes to sustainably manage a destination. At the same time, they have other people they need to report to about progress. Practice these three principles of stakeholder management to effectively manage expectations while keeping others informed.

1. Clarity – Stakeholders may be juggling multiple priorities of their own, forgetting previous status updates you provided. Share meeting minutes or create a dashboard of progress to make it easy for them to get clarity on progress, next steps, and how you are addressing their concerns.
2. Communication – Communicate with stakeholders regularly and often. Establishing a clear frequency for status updates, for example, once per month or even every other week or after key milestones will keep stakeholders connected to your tourism initiatives and minimize questions. 
3. Collaboration – It is not always possible to include stakeholders in decisions—there are elements of tourism development that only tourism directors can own—but involving stakeholders when you can will give you unique insights and strengthen your relationships. 

Solution 2: Hire other people

It is nearly impossible for one person to manage a destination. Even a small staff is not usually enough, especially if they are mostly volunteers. Hiring other people, whether that is an employee or a destination management agency like DestinationiQ, is a great solution. When you bring others on board you can divide up the responsibilities, making it possible to get more done.

Who to Hire: Employee vs Destination Management Agency

How to Grow Your Expertise

Solution 1: Invest in professional development

There are a variety of ways to learn about tourism and develop new skills. With advancements in technology, many workshops, webinars, and courses can be completed online. A few good places to start are searching online for tourism development courses, looking at resources developed by your state, or enlisting DestinationiQ to perform specialized training or create a special workshop, etc.

Solution 2: Follow industry news and trends

Learning does not have to be formal. Reading blogs or trade websites, listening to podcasts, or joining professional social media groups are great ways to keep your knowledge current without spending a lot of time.

Solution 3: Build a network

Making connections in the tourism industry gives you a rich network to draw on when you have a question. The connections you make when you attend state or regional tourism conferences, outdoor recreation summits or conferences, or join local or virtual groups allow you to see what others are doing and share ideas for navigating challenges. Take the idea one step further and meet regularly with a small group of other tourism directors to talk about trends, discuss initiatives, and collaborate.

How to Secure More Funding

Solution 1: Identify funding sources

Funding for tourism typically comes from three sources:

1. Government – State, counties, or cities fund tourism by allocating portions of tax revenue. 
2. Special tax rates or districts – Specialized tax rates, like a lodging tax, or tax districts, like a Local Marketing District, can boost tax revenue for tourism.
3. Grants – Grants present powerful opportunities for funding. Applying for these funds can provide your destination an injection of funds to help you grow, innovate, or make the changes you need.

Grant application tips 

• Explore your options – Tourism offices and associations are great starting places to look for grants, but they are not the only sources. Look for asset-based grants, like cultural grants, or activity-based grants, like off-highway vehicle (OHV) grants.
• Make a template – Grants often ask for the same information, including a description of your destination and goals, key performance indicators, mechanisms for tracking, and more. Create a cheat sheet for yourself and customize the information as necessary to speed up the process.
• Hire an expert – There are grant experts you can partner with who will do the time-intensive work of finding and applying for grants. Plus, with experts on board, you will have someone who can effectively manage the grant once secured, including creating and implementing a strategy for recordkeeping and monitoring the project throughout the grant cycle, making the final grant reporting process easier, efficient, and more effective.

Solution 2: Think strategically

DMOs that approach their work like a business are more effective than those that do not. Business leaders think strategically about investments and understand which of their efforts will return the highest return on investment (ROI). For tourism directors, understanding what draws visitors in and extends their visits—in turn increasing tax revenue—will help you use the budget you have more effectively.

Calculate tourism ROI

Here is a quick example:

Total TAX Revenue = $90,000
Total Economic Impact = $10,000,000
ROI = $10,000,000 / $90,000
$10,000,000 / $90,000 = 111
111 to 1 ROI

In other words, you invested $90k, and your return was $10M. That was an ROI of 111 to 1. For every dollar you spent, you made $111! (If only every investment were that lucrative!)

Opening the Potential of Your Destination 

Time, expertise, and funding are barriers that interrupt successful tourism management. When destination professionals address these challenges in smart and innovative ways, they unlock the gates of untapped potential for travel in their region. Just imagine what you could do with ample time, the right expertise, and abundant funding. You would go beyond managing destinations and begin making the strategic investments needed to foster a vibrant, thriving community, leaving a mark on the hearts of travelers and residents. By addressing the challenges of time, expertise, and funding, you will bridge your gap, enhance the visitor experience, and empower your destination to grow sustainably, paving the way for a robust future.

Why DestinationiQ

DestinationiQ is the leader in tourism empowerment, transforming communities into thriving destinations through comprehensive management and meaningful connections.

As tourism management experts with decades of experience, we fill a gap in the market left by traditional tourism consultancies by planning and implementing strategic tourism initiatives. We empower communities and those connected to them by providing the expertise and execution needed to reimagine and sustain tourism in destinations responsibly. 

We transcend the conventional boundaries of a tourism consultancy, assuming the role of community architects championing brighter futures by managing every facet of tourism. Our approach centers on cultivating meaningful connections, driven by profound listening, fostering collaboration, and embracing unity. We are driven by the possibility that communities can thrive sustainably and that positive change can be created without sacrificing authenticity. 

Travel has the incredible power to strengthen communities. If you are ready to add expertise, resources, and time to unlock your community’s full potential, partner with DestinationiQ.

Get started today. Contact DestinationiQ.