Destination Discourse

Destination Discourse is the essential podcast for DMOs and travel industry professionals who want to stay ahead in destination marketing, stewardship, and management. Hosted by industry experts Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker, each episode delves into the key issues and trends shaping the future of tourism. From cutting-edge innovations to the complex challenges of destination management, we offer thought-provoking insights, honest debates, and practical takeaways. Part love letter to the industry, part therapy session, and part user manual, Destination Discourse is your trusted source for real talk and expert advice. Join us to explore inspiring campaigns, hear from leading voices, and gain the insights you need to elevate your destination strategies.

Destination Discourse is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 95 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Destination Discourse, a business show with 95 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Episode #95

  95: When's the Last Time Your DMO Admitted a Campaign Bombed? (Dan Gibson)

  Aug 20, 202658 min

  Every DMO panel is a highlight reel - so why does no one ever mention what didn't work? Returning guest Dan Gibson (Visit McMinnville) joins Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker to make the case that destination marketing's biggest blind spot isn't failure - it's the refusal to talk about it. They dig into how vanity metrics let DMOs claim success on their own terms, why agencies get punished the moment a campaign underperforms (even though hiring only risk-averse agencies just guarantees more sameness), and why the sea of sameness in destination marketing exists precisely because nobody is closing doors through real failure. Adam makes the case that opportunity cost compounds quietly for years - the campaigns you never tried are costing you more than the ones that flopped. Stuart walks through Visit Myrtle Beach's own string of failed podcast launches before Charlie's Place became an award-winning hit, and the group lands on a framework for talking to boards about risk: lead with what you learned, not what went wrong. Dan also explains why resulting - judging a decision by its outcome instead of the thinking behind it - is wrecking how DMOs evaluate their own work. Bottom Line: If your organization can't point to a recent, real failure, you're not innovating - you're coasting, and the compounding cost of that caution is bigger than any single bad campaign.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #94

  94: Are LLM Visibility Audits Total BS? (Emily Zertuche)

  Aug 13, 202652 min

  Every vendor in the industry suddenly has an "AI visibility score" to sell you. Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker dig into whether GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is real measurement or an expensive mirage, joined by repeat guest Emily Zertuche, CDME, founder of Zertura (formerly Visit Corpus Christi), in her first episode as a vendor. The trio unpacks a Fast Company piece questioning whether GEO is real. Emily explains why most "visibility scores" fall short of basic statistical rigor - testing a prompt three times isn't a sample, it's noise. She cites IAB's May guidance acknowledging there's no real standard yet for measuring non-deterministic LLM outputs, and lays out what rigor actually looks like: repeated sampling, confidence intervals, margin of error - not a single score. Stuart argues the industry chases feel-good numbers that don't move demand or economic impact, while Adam pushes back that writing off an entire vendor category discourages the experimentation destinations need. All three land on a better path: quality scores, sentiment tracking, net promoter score for visitors and residents, and treating visitor experience as the real driver behind citations and LLM recommendations. Bottom Line: There's no silver-bullet AI visibility score today. Ask vendors to show their methodology and confidence intervals before you buy in, and keep measuring real experience and sentiment - that's what actually earns citations.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #93

  93: Are You Paying Attention to the Trends Reshaping Marketing Right Now?

  Aug 6, 20261h 5m

  Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker step outside destination marketing to spot the trends reshaping consumer attention right now - and don't even agree on which ones matter most. Adam opens with Reddit, still one of the most under-used channels in marketing. He breaks down how a fitness app built a 16,000-person community by posting like a real Redditor instead of an advertiser, plus stats on how much Reddit shapes purchase decisions and LLM search results. Stuart argues the value equation has flipped: consumers aren't chasing low price, they want affordable indulgence. He points to Taco Bell's "Luxe" value menu and Walmart's new premium-positioned budget line as proof that framing now beats price. Adam makes the case for nostalgia and genealogical travel, especially for millennials starting to feel old and craving connection to their past. Stuart pushes DMOs to ditch age-based targeting for psychographics and life stage, using the non-alcoholic beer brand Athletic as an example of ignoring demographics entirely. Adam explains why low-production, authentic content is outperforming polished hero videos on social - and why budgets need to flip. Stuart closes with the biggest shift: marketers no longer control product perception, audience, or distribution. The move now is collaboration over promotion, not ownership of every channel. Bottom Line: The destinations that win next aren't the ones with the biggest budget or sharpest demographic targeting - they're the ones willing to show up authentically in conversations they don't control.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #92

  92: Is Your DMO Chasing Relevance When It Should Be Fighting for Significance?

  Jul 30, 202650 min

  In this episode of Destination Discourse, Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker recap Adam's latest CMO Jam - a live, candid roundtable with six DMO marketing leaders - and dig into the ideas that stuck. The biggest one: panelist Christian Mingle pushed back on the word "relevance," calling it table stakes - do people know we exist? He argued DMOs should chase significance instead: do we actually move the needle for our destination? The framing reshaped the rest of the discussion. They also cover the agency model's unraveling. Multiple CMO Jam panelists said they'd fired their agency of record in favor of specialists hired for specific problems, as in-house teams get more capable with AI. Adam argues agencies must shift from selling execution to selling strategy and partnership, and predicts real disruption over the next three years. The conversation closes on budget: money is moving from paid media into content, but not owned content. Stuart makes the case for incentivizing residents and locals to create authentic destination content instead of DMOs producing and owning it themselves - trading control for reach and distribution. Adam also announces DMO Jam, a new recurring mastermind cohort for destination marketers, expanding on the CMO Jam format. Bottom Line: Relevance just means people know you exist. Significance means you can prove impact - and that's the bar DMOs, and their agencies, now have to clear.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #91

  91: Is Your DMO Website Still Just a Listings Page in an AI World? (Will Wright)

  Jul 23, 202651 min

  AI is already cutting DMOs out of the trip-planning conversation - and Will Wright (Destination Core) thinks most destination websites are wasting the one asset that could save them: real local knowledge. Will's thesis: DMOs are sitting on one of the most powerful editorial assets in travel - trusted, local, authentic knowledge - but keep acting like paid listing sites instead of genuine local experts. His fix is a layered approach to data. Below the "hygiene" facts (hours, room counts, amenities) that OTAs already own, there's a "vibe" layer - subjective, experiential judgment that only comes from people who've actually been there. He argues DMOs could become an accreditation layer: not hosting reviews themselves, but vouching for which ones are legitimate, like a digital version of the vanishing visitor information center. Stuart pushes back hard - member businesses will revolt if you start scoring them, and scraping reviews off TripAdvisor and Expedia runs straight into their terms of service. The two go back and forth on whether accreditation is realistic or just a nice idea that dies on contact with stakeholders. Also covered: Claude's new consumer-facing trip-planning feature and what it signals about AI disintermediating DMO websites entirely, and why DMOs may have been collecting first-party data for the wrong reasons all along. Bottom Line: Your website's opening-hours-and-amenities data is already commodity information. The differentiator is the layer only your team can provide - genuine, experienced, local judgment - and if you're not building that, an AI or an OTA will fill the gap for you.

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on Destination Discourse. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.