Moments of Clarity is proud to bring you data and insights to help you leverage your place-based assets. Your residents, businesses, and visitors will benefit.
Tools and Techniques: How to Share Your DMO’s Impact
Does your destination management organization (DMO) struggle with how to demonstrate its impact and value to the community? Do your local municipalities understand how tourism revenues can help balance local budgets and meet community-wide needs?
While it’s widely accepted that fire departments keep us safe, schools keep our future secure, and parks keep us healthy, the work of destination organizations is not widely accepted.
Experience Kissimmee created the online tool Impactulator to help destination organizations communicate the value of their tourism promotion and destination management efforts.
The Impactulator tool offers two key features:
* It calculates the return on investment that a destination organization brings and
* It communicates the value in a way that residents, politicians, and associations can understand and appreciate.
Impactulator combines raw data, field-tested formulas, nationwide benchmarks, independently validated figures, and research-driven messaging using patent pending technology. It then delivers print-ready narratives for key audiences in your destination, including local elected officials, residents, and internal leadership. Learn more at Impactulator.com.
Industry Insights
Do you know what Federal or State-level initiatives could help make your destination more competitive? Here are two pieces of legislation that could boost your efforts.
Increasing Responsible Visitation on Federal and Forest Lands
Why It Matters: Earlier this year, the Senate introduced S.873, a bipartisan bill that would increase and improve access to outdoor recreation–and work with gateway communities to encourage responsible visitation.
Summary: Originally introduced in 2022, the bill is now called America’s Outdoor Recreation Act. The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management would need to consider ways to improve recreation when developing and revising land management plans. The bill would do the following:
- Bring new technologies to Federal agencies, such as make National Parks and Federal Land Passes available for purchase online.
- Foster coordination among agencies, including providing real-time visitation data.
- Encourage responsible visitation so that the increase in traffic to the areas will not result in resource damage. These programs include partnerships with gateway communities to help address needs such as "parking, housing shortages, accommodation of visitors, and demands on municipal infrastructure."
Bill to Establish a USDA Office of Agritourism
Why It Matters: The bill (H.R. 5203) would establish an office within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help communities leverage agritourism. This effort would strengthen rural economies.
Summary: The Department recognizes that
- Travelers have a growing interest in agritourism, including educational experiences, outdoor recreation, and special events and
- These activities benefit rural communities because they generate visitor spending, share a community's rural heritage, and encourage farms to diversify and create related enterprises that raise supplemental income.
What We're Reading
As destination stewardship is a key concern for many Clarity of Place clients, we're happy to share the ways tourism partners worldwide are reducing crowds, protecting natural assets, and ensuring resident quality of life.
- Travelers Willing to Pay More for Sustainable Travel
New research found that nearly 80% of travelers will pay at least 10% more for sustainable travel features, despite the increased cost of living. - Don’t Poo-poo these States’ Pleas to Keep the Parks Pristine
The Colorado Tourism Office's new first-in-the-nation destination stewardship department is among those educating visitors on how to “doo” travel right. - Barcelona’s ‘Bold Strategy’ to Quell the Tourism Crisis
Imposing cruise taxes, limiting available beds, curbing an airport expansion, and prohibiting loud tour megaphones are among Barcelona's steps to calm tourism. - Amsterdam: The European Capital Fighting Bad Tourists
Even Amsterdam is drawing the line on tourists' behavior, promoting cycling tours, unsung museums, and an end to peeing in the canals.
Meetings and Conferences
Check out these meetings and events that can help you better support your destination and its economic development. The Clarity of Place team is planning to attend the meetings marked with an asterisk.
- UMCVB Annual Upper Midwest Convention and Visitors Bureau Fall Conference - September 11 - 13, 2023
- International Economic Development Council (IEDC) Annual Conference – September 17-20, 2023*
- Colorado Governor's Tourism Conference - September 27-29, 2023*
- International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Annual Conference – September 30 – October 4, 2023*
- Destinations International Advocacy Summit - October 10 - 12, 2023*
- TTA Annual Texas Travel Summit - October 16 - 18, 2023
- MCE Music Cities Convention - October 18 - 20, 2023
