Are DMOs and Vacation Rentals Finally Ready to Work Together? with Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker

Alex Husner  0:36  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: the real woman of vacation rentals. I'm Alex and I'm Annie, and we're joined today by two returning visitors. We have Stuart Butler, who is the president of Visit Myrtle Beach, and Adam Stoker, who is the president of brand revolt. It's so good to see you guys. Good to see you all

Annie Holcombe  0:54  
too, before we dig into this, because I know we this conversation is likely to go for hours, and so we want to kick it off. But why don't you give us an introduction to our audience? Start with you, Stuart, just tell us a little bit about you and your your journey and travel and hospitality, and then we'll go over to

Stuart Butler  1:12  
Adam, sure. Yeah. I mean, I fell backwards into this industry, like I think a lot a lot of folks did. They I fell in love with it and stayed around. Never left my background. I was a nerd. I was a professional nerd physics with space science and Systems and Computer Science with my degrees, and I actually fell fell in love with the hospitality industry with my first job, which was for an agency locally in model, beach programming, booking engine software for hotels. And so that's where I sort of got my first taste of hospitality. And then over the years, I spent about 20 years in the agency world providing services for a lot of hotels and apparel and real estate and other industries, but really gravitated towards hospitality, and then eventually ended up with the DMO, with visit model beach, and started out as the CMO, and then now I'm the president, which basically means I get to do less fun stuff, and I have to talk to people more. But that's good. And then, on the side, I also, and the reason both Adam and I are here today is we do a podcast similar to yours, but really focused on the DMO industry, called destination discourse. And so we like to have hard, gritty conversations like you guys do and talk about all the all the thing opportunities and threats that are facing the DMO world. So I'll hand it to Adam from here. Yeah.

Adam Stoker  2:27  
So like you mentioned, Adam Stoker, president of brand revolt, and I've been in the advertising space since about 2008 or, well, no, at this point, 2006 when my wife told me I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life if I wanted to marry her. So I chose advertising that semester, and then I've been in the destination marketing space since 2012 I randomly walked into my job was to sell for the agency, and I walked into a DMO and asked them if they needed help with their marketing. I didn't even know what a DMO was, and it turns out they did need help, and that kind of spiraled into tourism, really becoming my passion, and worked with many DMOS in Utah. And then when we tried to scale outside of Utah, because we had scaled so fast inside of Utah, I was like, Oh, this is going to be easy, only to find that there was a lot of competition out there, and figured that we needed somewhere where we could demonstrate that we knew what we were talking about, and so we started a podcast in 2019 called the destination marketing podcast. And that show has kind of blown my mind the impact that it's had on my career. It you know, there's only about 25,000 or so destination marketing professionals in the world, and we've got 155,000 downloads on that show. We've done almost 450 episodes of that show, and haven't missed a week since May of 2019 so it's how I met Stuart. It's how we became friends. He was a guest on the podcast, and I guess the rest is history, but it's been kind of a wild experience to to go from where we were in 2019 to now, having having a show like this that allows me to meet so many incredible people and have a lot of really fun conversations.

Alex Husner  4:09  
And you know, what's so funny as I was listening to you go back through that amazing history, was we know you and I actually met because of the podcast too, that I was at destinations international when I was with Visit Myrtle Beach, where Stuart was President, and I remember you gave a presentation about podcasting for destinations and how it was such a powerful vehicle that most DMOS were just not exploring. And Annie and I were, I think, a week ahead of releasing our show for the first time, our first episode. And I remember taking screenshots of your presentation because you had so many good stats in there. And I was just like, texting them all her. I'm like, this is, well, this is a good idea. I'm so glad we're doing this. This is going to be good, but it's, you know, podcasting for sure. Obviously we we know the benefits there, and we've seen what it's done for for our industry as well. But you guys, your show the new. Show that you have is is phenomenal. And I have to admit, I'm a bit of a fan girl. I listen every week. And I think you've had some really fascinating people on the show to talk about, what's, you know, going on in the DMO world. And I think you asked some, you know, some kind of controversial questions and some controversial topics to really challenge what people are are thinking about is happening, versus what the reality is? But Stuart, I'll start with you. But I mean, in your mind, what's changed in destination marketing? And like, what is the current state of destination marketing in 2026 versus where it was maybe a few years ago, when, when you came into the role?

Stuart Butler  5:37  
Yeah, I mean, it's a question we're struggling with, right? Because it's a moving target. You know, I'd argue, in some ways, everything has changed. And so it forces us to think about, okay, what are the things that are not changing? Right? And so I'll start with the reverse of your question. I think we know that things like people want to travel, right? We know that's that's true. I think any stat you look at says people's intend to travel is as high as it's ever been. You know, even even post pandemic is just as high, the means to travel probably aren't as good as they were, but how they make those decisions is fundamentally different today. But what influences those decisions, word of mouth, social proof and those like rooted psychological hacks, is is still the same. But I think the challenge we have in the destination marketing world is we've always been a little bit behind, you know, I, like I mentioned, I used to work at an agency doing online retail and apparel and things like that. And then we worked with hotels. Hotels were five years behind the online retailers in terms of sophistication of their marketing. And then I came to the DMO world, and DMOS are probably five years behind hotels, you know. So they're probably a decade behind the latest trends in technology, and we're trying to accelerate that in my little beach, but we're also part of a bigger ecosystem, because all the DMOS sort of, they tend to go in trends related to how they're funded, you know, the support they get from their communities. And so if one big DMO struggles, it usually has a knock on effect. So I think for us, we're trying to find our relevance. And Adam has sort of coined the phrase in our show destination discourse, which is a lot of DMOS are built for the illusion of relevance. They're looking at vanity metrics. They're looking at the things that they think matter to people, but maybe aren't really impactful. So I think given that what they're consuming has changed, how media consumption has changed, how decision making has changed, AI is obviously the biggest disrupt, most disruptive technology in the history of mankind, if we don't all evolve together, whether we're short term rentals, hotels, destinations, if we don't evolve to meet, meet the folks where they are. And I think DMOS will be the first pillar to full in a restructuring of hospitality promotion set

Annie Holcombe  7:44  
up a question, kind of since, I mean, most of our audience is short term vacation rental and DMOS being relevant, that's something that comes up a lot. I'm consulting with a group that's in Indianapolis as an example. There are 6000 vacation and short term rentals in the in the greater Indianapolis area. If you go to their DMO website, there is not a mention of it. And I actually sent an inquiry in and said, Hey, do you have short term rentals, vacation rentals? And they said, Absolutely. And they sent me a link to all of the hotels that offer kind of hotel, you know, like, like, what they would consider, you know, like the with the kitchenettes and, you know, those kind of things. So, like, your midterm stay hotels, and so they've blocked out a very large segment of the business. And so I know that that goes back to very hairy conversations that relate to hotel lobbies, especially, you know, you look at New York and what happened with them shutting the industry down, and you know, there's, there's a lot to be said. Some people say, Absolutely, the hotel lobby has a lot to do it. Some people say it's just that the DMOS just aren't paying attention, and they just don't know. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I think there's probably both. Both things can be true. But how do you think that a DMO can maintain relevance with the growing appetite for short term and vacation rentals? I mean, there's that's not going away, that's done nothing but explode since covid, it's leveling out, but you know you're talking, there's a million and a half vacation rentals and short term rentals in the US, and probably more that we don't even know about that might only be listed on, you know, maybe they only rent on one like rogue site, and we don't know about them, and they're not paying their taxes, and they're not doing the good job that they should be. But a DMO needs to recognize that segment to be relevant, don't you think? I guess you don't know which one you would like to answer that question.

Stuart Butler  9:22  
Adam, you want to take it? I have some strong opinions on this one. Yeah, I'll let you go.

Adam Stoker  9:28  
I think your your question is, is really important, because with so much changing, like, like you started with, how can destinations maintain their relevance? If, if the short term rentals are going to take so much market share and continuing to take so much market share, I believe that the short term rentals are all part of the overall experience, and as long as they're participating in the tax system, I think they improve the relevance of a DMO when they're not paying their. Taxes, that's a different story, and that's one that I probably won't address near as directly, but I believe that a destination's role needs to go back to basics, and we've talked about this a little bit over the last several weeks on our show, that the reason a destination is relevant is because the role is to inspire visitation to the destination. And I don't believe that, and I could be wrong. I'm not in the same seat that Stewart is right. I'm a vendor, so he may have a different opinion on this, but I believe that short term rentals pay a play a critical part in the overall experience that a destination has to offer, and destinations. Job is to use those as one of the assets, use short term rentals as one of the assets that makes up the whole of the experience, and inspire people to come have the experience that fits them the best. I can tell you that as a as a father of four, when my family travels, a standard hotel room doesn't accommodate my family, and I kind of reached the point where it's like adjoining rooms at minimum, or I'm getting a VRBO right when I go somewhere term rental. And I think that's a critical audience that you need to speak to and make sure that you're inspiring them, even if your standard Hotel, which is your primary vehicle of funding, even if that's not where they're going to stay, because they contribute to the overall experience, you still get the long tail benefit of word of mouth, of the social posts that come from the experience, and all the intangible kind of offshoots that someone has when they have a wonderful time and a destination. And so I personally think that they're all part of the same experience. I think destinations and short term rentals working together can mutually benefit each other, and I don't see much of a division between the two. But again, I'd love to hear Stuart's take on that.

Stuart Butler  11:53  
Yeah, I think the reality, I mean, I agree theoretically, with everything you said, Adam, I just that's not the reality we're dealing with now. I'm not when I'm what I'm about to say. I'm not talking about model Beach, because I will point out that two of our past five chairs of our board of directors have been from the short term rental space, including Alex, yeah. So we try to incorporate short term rentals and campgrounds as well as hotels, condo tells, you know, every piece of the ecosystem, because we're dealing with in the model beach, we have a lot of youth sports, things like that, and a lot of times short term rental, especially is more conducive to a larger group. So I'm not speaking for model beach, but if we sort of look at what, how did we get to where we are, I'm a big believer in the outcome we have is a direct result of the system that's in place. And so what we've done is we've incentivized DMOS by saying who are the biggest contributors right to a DMO. It's typically the large hotel groups right in up until fairly recently, short term rentals has been very fragmented in most destinations, with the exception, I think model Beach was probably ahead of a lot of destinations, and there's exceptions, but the short term rental industry just didn't have a voice, didn't have a seat at the table, didn't have clout, was not contributing financially at the same level as hotels. And so obviously, if you're a hotelier, there's a incentive for you to say, I don't really want competition, right? And the arguments you're going to hear that are going to be the same in every destination as well. Short term rentals aren't on the same playing field. They don't they have an unfair advantage. The regulations are different. They're not paying their full taxes. You've heard the rhetoric, whether it's true or not, that's that's the sort of rhetoric. So I think there's a system in place that sort of prevents short term rentals from naturally being at the table. So I think it's on. It's the onus is on the short term rental providers to coalesce, to form power structures, to contribute financially, because that's that's part of playing the game. It to be relevant, right? If the short term rentals aren't relevant to the DMO, then the DMO is not going to pay attention, right? And so I think, I think it's going to be, it's going to require radical collaboration from both sides, but I think in most cases, it's going to start from a coalescence and a collaborative between the short term rentals to go to your DMO and say, We want a voice, we want to see it at the table, and we're willing to play the rule by the rules and contribute, however, because there's no question that every short term rental benefits from a strong DMO, right? The more demand there is for your destination, the more success as CR is going to have.

Alex Husner  14:34  
Yeah, and I think the the issue in some areas is, if it's not a area where, like a Myrtle Beach or there's lots of vacation rental companies that aggregate hundreds of properties together. It's harder for these DMOS to know who they need to be reaching out to, who they need to be trying to get to come to events and be part of the conversation. And if it's a newer property management company or host, I don't know that they really know to even think to go to the DMO or to their channel. Chamber to look for help with marketing. But I'm wondering, like, how could areas that don't have what we have here, of those groupings together, how can they work with the DMO? I mean, like, give me an example, maybe, of like, what sort of things could they do to try and get that attention?

Stuart Butler  15:16  
Yeah. I mean, I think money always speaks, right? So I think willing to contribute, is it? But I also think you make enough noise to the right people, right? And I think if you look at how do you get attention from someone that's not paying you attention, you need to make it more uncomfortable for them to not give you attention anymore, right? And so that can be education of their stakeholders, you know, figure out who's sitting on their board and take them to coffee and lunch. It could be elected officials, and every DMO is funded through, usually a city or a county and sometimes the state. So build those relationships. Eventually, try to build individual relationships with the stakeholders. But I think it starts with education and sharing, and then it leads to radical collaboration, right? You got it. We got to see that there's a mutual benefit to everyone and and that it's not a threat to the status quo. I think if, anytime you look at when you're trying to change something, resistance typically comes from the folks that are benefiting the most from the status quo. In most cases, that's going to be the hoteliers, right? And so how do you build a relationship with them so they don't become the roadblock? So I think, you know, short term rental managers in general, at least, my experience has been they're very good with people. You know, they're very good at building relationships. I think we need to put that superpower to the work, to work to make the build those relationships with the right power brokers, and ask the questions like, How can we help each other? You know, I think that's if you can, if you can agree on an aligned vision or goal, that'd be great. You know, I think especially with when I look at the work you guys have done with vrma and people like that, I think it's very obvious to me that you are as against the bad actors in the industry as anyone else, right? And so I think that could be your common point of attack, right, which is, hey, go to the DMO and say, Yes, we do have a problem with people under reporting taxes or not following the regulations or putting the visitors in danger. Right, which is, ultimately, if they're not following the standards, that's one of the biggest threats. That's that's a commonality that they would root with you together to say, hey, how do we eliminate this? How do we identify and stop this, these bad actors from ruining it, from everyone? And then you, then you have a common goal. I think that's often helpful.

Annie Holcombe  17:38  
Yeah, I think education. I think we've all agreed across all the spectrums, like the education is the key to everything, and it's like there's so many people, the barrier to entry into this space was non existent, especially during covid. And so some people stayed, some people didn't, but some people that did stay didn't have the right foundational operations in place. They didn't understand what they were doing, and they've continued to operate kind of as a as a bad actor. So, yeah, I think, I think you're spot on in that the coalescence of of the segment has to, has to work. But I also, I also wonder, going back to the the point of relevancy, I mean, if the consumer, if Adam's going to a market, and Adam's going to be needing that type of accommodation. Does it not make sense for the DMOS to be seeking out that accommodation? Because, are they? Are they losing an opportunity to really capitalize on a specific event because they're not showcasing, you know, the accommodations on the breadth of the accommodations that are available, because they haven't really done their homework? So yes, I think that the segment has to speak up for itself. But I also think that I, you know, I know what in Panama City Beach, when we went through that sort of trying to get the seat at the table years ago, it was very much like we've been doing this for a really long time, and you guys that we have sponsored events and we have been involved, and you've still ignored us, you know. So it's it came around. And obviously they have a great relationship with the segment, but I think that there's some, and it probably is more in the urban area, because the hotel piece of the equation is so heavy that it's more prevalent. I wonder, like, what is an easy way for both sides to recognize without upsetting the apple cart, so to speak?

Adam Stoker  19:16  
Yeah, I think one thing I would just say there is this is. This is where the complicated nature of what a DMO actually is really comes into play. I mean, the role of the DMO is described as to inspire travel to a destination. The harsh reality of a DMO is the funding partners who contribute the most have the most sway, because they have the most impact on whether or not destination marketing professionals can be there long term, or whether they're going to get pushed out and sent off to build their career in another destination. And so I think one of the key things that that builds relevance is value and. And I think in order to provide value to a DMO as a short term rental organization or partner in some way, you have to understand what value they need in order to provide it. And so I think you mentioned education, that there's, there's a really important process of learning that needs to take place so that, you know, hey, if I am bringing point zero, 4% of the funding to the destination. But I want 20% of the attention. I'm going to have to figure out how to demonstrate that I bring enough value to justify 20% of the attention beyond the point zero 4% of funding that I'm bringing right. And so value can be provided in a lot of different ways. I think the it is incumbent upon the short term rental owner or short term rental organization to find out what the needs of the DMO are and provide that value so that they can become more relevant, because the point zero, 4% of funding will never achieve the relevance that you're looking for on its own.

Stuart Butler  20:57  
Yeah, and I think it's as much a people problem as it is anything else, right? It's about is, is the person, whoever or people making decisions? Are they focused on STRS or not? And if they're not, then that that's what we need to influence. And so I think it starts with those relationships. I think it starts with finding out a path to be serving on the board of directors for that organization. That's tough, right? But you don't have to have money to serve on the board. You just have to have clout and influence. So if you have relationships with city council members, if you have relationships with county council members and business leaders, you're a lot more likely to so you can do that. I think that's that's a you start with relationships, you serve on the board, you build relationships with the staff there, and then that opens the opportunity for that mutual understanding of what the challenges are and what assets you each bring to the table. I don't think financially it's ever going to you're ever going to be able to compete with the big hotels, so I think you've got to work it harder in terms of effort and contribution. I mean, Alex is a great example of that. Like Alex at one point, in some argue it still is. But at one point, she was the chair of our organization, and people would argue that was probably the most powerful volunteer position in our community, right? And she represented a large vacation rental. She had complete clout in terms of dictating what our priorities were. And so I think you got to put yourselves in those positions where you actually can influence things.

Alex Husner  22:27  
And I think on that too, one thing I would say is that, I mean, not only do you get more, I mean, you have a seat at the table, you have the ability to voice what you think should be done for short term rentals, if you are involved at the board level or committee or whatever it is that you're able to get to, but you learn so much from what's going on about marketing, about marketing in the destination, about what other competitors are doing. And I feel like, you know, so much of my experience and what I gained from being part of it was just what I what I learned from everybody else who was in that room. So there's, you know, tons and tons of benefits for sure. Obviously, we're all big proponents of being involved there. But one thing that came to mind, and I've heard you guys talk about this on your show, and I know we've certainly debated it many, many times in many conversations I've been part of as being on the board. But what is the role nowadays? Do you think what is the role of the DMO? I mean, should you even be promoting any sort of product. I mean, like, is the DMO supposed to promote the destination, not, not specific to any accommodations or restaurants? You're promoting the experience that someone has? I mean, you're mentioning things, but, like, you're really supposed to be promoting the entire area, right? Not necessarily what the product is, not what the accommodations are. So what do you what do you think of that in today's day and

Unknown Speaker  23:45  
age? Stuart, I want you to go first.

Stuart Butler  23:51  
I think this is the existential question that's facing the industry. There's, there's something I've said on our show a few times, which is, there's a badge of honor, almost in an industry. That is, when you've seen one DMO, you've seen one DMO, and they sort of wear that with pride, that they're all sort of unique. And I think that may actually be our biggest Achilles heel, because there's no two DMOS that agree on what their role is, what their purpose is, what their scope is, how they do things. And so I think in this sort of new world order that's coming related to the changes in consumer behavior because of AI where consumers are going to be way more empowered be able to go, you know, their research funnel is going to be condensed into a single point. I think we got to determine where do we fit into that new vision. You know, if websites disappear, if, if you know, how people are inspired is completely different, like, what's our role? So I think there's a couple of changes of thought, right? One is, our role is promotion, right? And that's it. And I think even in that, there's subsets. One is we just drive awareness and attention for the destination and then let the individual businesses harvest that in. Intent that we create. We create the demand. They harvest the intent. I don't think that's it. I don't I don't personally think that is that is it. There's also another train of thought where DMOS have gotten into this renaming game of whether we're a dmmo, like a destination management, marketing organization, or a DSO, a destination stewardship organization, or just a do a destination organization?

Speaker 4  25:23  
Are you going to change it to a destination steward organization? Man, you're the president. You can do

Annie Holcombe  25:33  
it. Yeah, a lot of things these days, so

Stuart Butler  25:38  
I'm not King yet, so I still need a vote from the board, but I think, you know, there's a role to be played in terms of economic development, in terms of product experience, in terms of the entire customer experience itself. So I think that's where we're exploring. But to be honest, every DMO is different, and everyone is governed differently, like we're board LED. So ultimately, our board will make those decisions. We're going to educate them and put that stuff in front of them and ask for feedback, like, what are the KPIs that matter to our stakeholders, to our businesses? You know, it might not be the same that we're measuring right now. They probably don't care about website traffic and stuff that we obsess over, they probably care more about, you know, unemployment rate in our market and things like that, right? So I think we're going to have to look a little more holistically, in my opinion, at least that's what we're exploring right now. Because I think just being an awareness engine, it's really hard to say that that's that's the right approach in the future that's coming, or some would argue, is right here, right now.

Alex Husner  26:45  
Well, because I think we've gone in both ways, or at least with Myrtle Beach, we have, and I'm sure with other organizations too, that for a while it was that we were really we were not doing as much on the awareness side, but we were doing a ton of advertising when somebody already knew to look for Myrtle Beach, and then we were able to direct traffic to these hotels, rental companies, restaurants, and they could see the ROI on that, and that was great. But then at some point, we all said, well, but we're still getting the same people that are coming. So maybe the DMOS role should not be so much as that facilitator to drive the traffic, but it should be, let's go out and let's get new eyeballs on the product in the first place and get them to search. And then, if you're a good marketer, people will find you on their own. If they find the DMO, that's fine, but you know, you should be able to do it on your own too. So it's gone back and forth on things. We'll be back in just a minute, but first a word from our premier brand sponsor.

Speaker 5  27:36  
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Alex Husner  30:31  
One area that we've talked about on the show, I think we might have talked about it with with you Adam the last time you were on. But some areas are now turning their website actually into like a booking engine, where it actually has live vacation rentals, has API feed, and then it feeds over to the property manager to book it. I don't know. I'm not sure what's going on on that side, but is that still something that you think is relevant in 2026

Adam Stoker  30:54  
so it's funny, I just did a webinar that released on my podcast yesterday where I tackle that exact issue, because one of the things that's happened, and I do actually want to get into the purpose of a DMO conversation as well at the end of this, but I want to address your question first, one of the things that happened, and this is where I've talked about that concept of true relevance, versus versus the illusion of relevance, that Stuart and I discuss on our show, destinations fell so in love with performance marketing because of the metrics it allowed them to provide to their stakeholders. It's I gave you this many website visits, this many clicks, and you know, there's this huge volume of traffic that we're bringing, and we kind of lost the forest for the trees in that process, because then once, once we built that vehicle, then the websites became completely optimized for performance marketing. And now the end result of that is, well, man, if this is the the relevance we're bringing, then we should add booking so that we can even show like more precise ROI numbers, but what that suddenly does is, number one, it puts you in competition with the OTAs, and you're never, ever going to beat the OTAs, because the OTAs have the aggregated market share across all DMOS. They're not beholden to just the locale that you are as a DMO, so you're inherently going to lose that battle with

Alex Husner  32:27  
a business that books reservations. You know, that's not what a DMO 100%

Speaker 3  32:33  
and the problem with that is that what we're doing is we're building down a dead end road only to find that the answer was not to put a booking engine on the website, because that's actually not the true purpose of a destination. And so my opinion is that destination websites should not be optimized for conversion, because that's not how the visitor wants to use them. They should be optimized for attention. And in my opinion, destinations job, and I'm going to go back into what the role of a destination is, the destinations job is to get as much attention as possible and convert that attention into trust. And if they do that, both on the on the consumer level, but also in the community, because that same attention needs to be leveraged into trust with the stakeholders, trust with the residents, that they're actually getting the value from the DMO that's being contributed to. That's what I think the role of a DMO is. But if I was to zoom out, because I've been putting a ton of thought into this, this has been like the topic of the last three or four of mine and Stewart's episodes, is, wait, wait a second. What's the purpose of a DMO? The real purpose is to build a lasting, sustainable tourism economy that benefits the destination permanently. And I just if we stop looking at some of these like narrow metrics and try to evaluate our success off these narrow metrics. We're building one year plans to create 20 year, 50 Year impact, and it's just impossible to achieve the 2030, year impact with a one year plan that every year we start at zero. And that's what concerns me about kind of the way our incentives are structured compared to what the expectation is for the purpose of a DMO. So the great thing

Stuart Butler  34:25  
about as show is that Adam and I often don't agree on a topic, and this is one where I don't fully, fully agree with him. I actually think a DMO should be in the further down the value chain, and right now, temporarily, should be in the transaction business, and the reason is, I'm looking forward through and bittermond Beach full disclosure does that for independent hotels right now. We're exploring doing that for vacation rentals and flagged hotels. But I think most of our stakeholders would agree that OTAs are a positive, net positive to the industry, but they're sort of a necessary. Very evil, right? They take in a pretty substantial chunk off the top. And you would argue that they're not actually driving any new visitation to my destination, because they're not really promoting model beach. They're promoting travel. You could argue that they're driving more total travel. But at the end of the day, in this new era that we're rapidly approaching, where AI is going to be, the beginning, middle and end of a trend of a travel planning and transaction. Then the DMO website is out of that equation, right? Potentially, the hotel website or the STR website is out of the equation. So everything's going to happen within the LLM or whatever that that manifests to be your sort of AI assistant of choice. We're already seeing people like Target and others that are doing transactions right within the LLM, well, individual hotels, individual STRS, for us to expect that we're going to be the group that's chosen when someone's interacting with an AI, and that we're the ones that are going to control the booking individually, I think, is just, it's ludicrous. So the DMO role, I think, does to Adam's point, does become more of a steward of the economy, and part of that is the responsibility of ensuring that individual businesses and a destination are what is manifested to and transacted in the llms. And if we, if we don't provide that role, the OTAs and others will. And what that means for you, individually, as a business is more and more of your margin is going to go to more and more middlemen along the way. So I think it's an imperative for us all to work collaboratively together with the DMO, almost as an agency representative of the destination, to bring everyone together, so we have more clout with the llms.

Annie Holcombe  36:49  
So let me, let me throw out of left field. But I think Adam, Adam mentioned the kind of stewardship within the community, and so, you know, I'm not going to go into into the nuts and bolts of it, but the destination, where I live right now is having some challenges. And it's, it's internal, it's, it was internal bad actors. It wasn't anything that was like bad for the destination. It was just some some people that made some bad decisions. But what that has done is allowed people in the destination to jump on this narrative that they don't know what they're doing, they don't know how to manage and it feeds into a greater narrative that's been in the state for about the last 1824, months, and that we need to do away with some of these. We need to take their funding, they don't know what they're doing, and then it becomes, well, it's tax dollars. So therefore, anytime you attach somebody's tax dollars, it becomes a fight. Now, regardless of the fact that these tax dollars are not generated by a local unless they're staying in an accommodation, if they're generated off of, you know, accommodation taxes that gets lost in the in the message and people, politicians are able to harness that and say, Well, you know what, if we just did away with them and took those tax dollars, we could put it to something else, and we would need all these people out there. So I think that there's a larger thing Florida is, I feel like ground zero for some of that conversation. I don't know of it happening at the depth. It's happening everywhere, right? But, yeah, I mean, I assume it is okay. But so like on that. What do you think is the, is there responsibility? What do you think the, what do you think should be done or can be done with that sort of narrative out there? I guess

Stuart Butler  38:25  
I often go back to Simon Sinek, right? I think he's one of the greatest thought leaders for business around generation, and, you know, he's the guy that came up with it, starts with why, and has built a whole empire around that, that kind of thing. But he talks a lot about this, about you can't persuade people to change their mind on something like if you've got, if you're in a state that believes that any money we can save, stop spending and give back to our residents in the form of tax breaks or whatever it is, we're going to do that. And I don't think, philosophically, you're ever going to change that. So we've got to find a common ground and agree on what the why is that hospitality and travel is important to our state, right? So we got to, instead of talking about the cost in the investment, which is where all the battle is focused, it's on. It's like Lord of the Rings. It's like the precious everyone's so fixated on that money, and whose is it, and who controls it? And can we split it up, and can we give it back to the residents? We need to stop talking about the money, the revenue side or the spend side, and we need to start talking about the return side, like, what is what does this mean? You know, and so I'll give an example. We've been doing these calculations here locally recently, because we're having this conversation in model beach and in South Carolina as well. If I was to reduce my budget by $10 million next year, according to tourism economics data, that would literally mean a $1.5 billion decrease in spend in our market from tourism, which then equates to about $50 billion in taxes going to the state. Yeah, you know. So I think those are the conversations we need to have, and not from a place of fear, but from education and from collaboration. Hey, we're all trying to do the same thing. Where do we agree? And then what information can I introduce to you to make sure you understand that reducing investment in promotion is going to have unintended consequences, or in some cases, intended consequences, but certainly consequences either way. So I think we just got to stop coming at this from opposite sides as a battle over the tug of war over the money, and start coming together and saying, Well, what are we really trying to do? Whether you're an elected official or a DMO, the beneficiary of your work is the resident of your community, right? They are the ones. Their quality of life will improve if you do a good job. That's the starting point. How do we both improve the quality of life of the resident? It's not taking money out of marketing that doesn't improve the quality of life. We need to look 20, 3040, years down the line of what we can build, the sustainable like Adam said, and so that's where the conversation needs to go.

Adam Stoker  41:03  
And I actually, I appreciate Stuart's comments there, especially at the end that the beneficiary of our work should be the resident. The thing that kind of blows my mind in the destination marketing space, and I get to say this because I'm not in a DMO specifically, but I don't understand why we spend so much money, time and effort on promotion to people who may come to the destination. But there's such a severe under investment in communication with the people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the work that we do. And there are many destinations that it's even legislated against spending dollars to message to our residents of our communities when, according to I believe it was Longwoods international that did this study, on average, 55% of visitors to any destination are visiting friends and relatives, and it's different, like up or down in different communities, but we're basically saying that, on average, we're not allowed to talk to the people who influence 55% of the visitation to our destination. And on top of that, they're unhappy with what we're doing because they think we're spending a ton of money, and they don't know where it's going or where they benefit as a result. And I think one of the biggest opportunities over the next couple of years in the destination marketing space is for some of these attitudes towards communicating to the residents of the community, and that includes the legislation associated with it change to allow us to demonstrate to the beneficiaries the value that we're bringing into their lives.

Stuart Butler  42:42  
I think what you just said, Adam, is maybe one of the most dangerous statements that I've ever heard. I mean, think of it like, I gotta be careful here. This is going out elected officials, let's say, let's just say some elected officials are not marketing experts, right? And they want things in plain, simple English they can understand and divulge the argument you're making right now would result in taxpayers dollars being spent by some people to say, visit model Beach, to someone that's already living in model Beach, right? And on the surface, I think you take what's already a delicate ecosystem with a lot of people attacking it, and it blows up. It goes, Florida would not fund any DMO if they were doing that kind of advertising. So I think in practice, you're right like that is that is part of a DMOS responsibility to foster a foster a sense of community pride in appreciation for the value of tourists and tourism, right? But I don't think spending taxpayers dollars to do that is necessary. I think there are other ways to do that that could reap the same benefit. I think it's more grassroots. I think it's going to a vendor and saying, Hey, I'm going to buy advertising for out of state marketing, but I need a value add for in state marketing when you do that, right? So I think there's ways you can get around it. I think if you try to change the legislation, you're you're gonna end up, without a shadow of a doubt, losing funding for DMOS.

Adam Stoker  44:19  
Yeah, and I can appreciate what you're saying. I would just say at scale, it's not happening. So you're right. There's other ways to skin the cat, there's other ways to to communicate with the community, but in large part, it is not happening. And I think a lot of these funding, like we're talking chicken and the egg a little bit here, Stuart and sorry, Alex and Annie, me and Stuart like to argue with each other. So that's, that's

Annie Holcombe  44:40  
I love this argument because I'm with you. I'm with you. And I mean, I think that that's I agree with Phyllis. I agree with Stuart's assessment that it's like what you said was like dangerous and controversial. Absolutely agree, but I also agree, and this is one of those things where both can be true. It needs to be done. Panama City Beach does a. Every year during tourism week, they do some stuff that's outreach to the community. And our destination and our community has reaped the rewards and the benefits of all the tax dollars through our pure Park, our, you know, sports parks. And some people see that the problem is the county goes, you know, 30 miles up, and those people that live 30 miles up Don't touch tourism at all, so they see it as like a drain. So I think that there has to because, and what ends up happening is those people become the keyboard warriors that are out there, digging up trouble, causing issues, trying to get in front of the press, saying all these things and calling their legislator up in Tallahassee over and over and over and over again, beating the drum we need to defund this particular, you know. So I think that there has to be, there has to be both pieces of it. How it gets done, I don't know, but I think that it's an important part of the conversation. It's like,

Alex Husner  45:51  
there's like, so many different ways to look at this conversation, too. Because, to Adam's point, I remember, you know, when I worked at condo world for 13 years, I had people reaching out to me all the time, asking where to stay when they came into Myrtle Beach all the time. And I still do. I'm not, I'm not promoting that. I'm renting condos anymore, so it's not as much. But, I mean, people were asking that all the time. And so I think, you know, when we look at it, okay, we're spending all this money to market to these people that we don't, we don't know that they're really interested in coming here or not. I mean, like they fit the demographic by however we're choosing the ad spend. But, you know, we don't know if they're interested in us or not, but we have all these people that live here, they've shown that they are interested because they live here, and they know people that are like them that would probably want to come visit here. So, but, you know, I totally get Stuart side of it to the danger slope there, but it's like, how do you what could be the creative solution there to to make the residents more advocates for us? Because, gosh, we've talked about this in so many different lenses over the years. Of you know, in the in the flip two days, of you know, sharing memories and stories from your stay and sharing that with your friends and family, that's going to inspire people that are like you, demographically, that are going to want to come, because they're going to come because they're going to see how much fun you had. Like, how do we leverage our people that live here in a good way that's not going to hurt the other side of the picture? I want

Adam Stoker  47:10  
to acknowledge that the three of us have the luxury of not having to be inside a DMO fighting these battles on a daily basis. So Stuart, I totally understand where you're coming from. I will say the choice that we have to make is, do you choose the funding attacks that we're experiencing today as DMOS, or the funding attacks that we may experience tomorrow, if we make some of those changes? And so many people in the destination space right now are under duress from the current funding attacks, I kind of feel like, yes, there absolutely is a danger to making some of those changes, but I also think there's danger in staying the same as well.

Stuart Butler  47:48  
There's way more danger just in having this conversation, this danger. I think people will hear this and think we've lost our mind. So I definitely am not in support of going and advocating for funding changes to promote the locals. However, I think locals, the residents, are really important component to the overall strategy that you have, right? I think we there's no question, they're influencing people's decisions. They're even influencing the reputation of your destination, just by what they're putting out on social media, right? And so we actually see that the further away from model beach we get, the better our reputation. Reputation is Panama City has the same thing, like we both get called some of the same pejoratives, right? Panama City Beach and mottled beach, but it's localized to our county and surrounding areas, and so once you get further afield, that is not the case. So I think influencing that, that perception in that reputation is important, but I don't think we need taxpayers dollars to do that. I think that's more of a collective community effort. You know, we do have someone on staff whose literal full time job is to have two way communication with our residency. So they go speak at, you know, local civic organizations. They'll meet with the local schools and kids. They'll, they'll, we've got an advisory board that will counsel. We've created of local residents now, so we're having these two way conversations, but we're also moving into the next phase, which is adding Ambassador programs and things like that. We already have an ambassador program for the Chamber of Commerce, but now we were looking at, do we have an ambassador program for visit Mona beach? So I think you can, you can work with your municipalities, your county, with your local businesses, with local civic organizations, to create that rally and cry. And I do think the DMO is best positioned to be that play, that sort of convener. But I think what we've got to do is set the table, invite other people to that table, so we're not taking on the burden on ourselves, because everyone benefits from healthcare, benefits from it, real estate benefits from it, manufacturing benefits from a thriving tourism economy. So I think you can get everyone to agree on tourism is good for our destination. Let's all make sure that it's as good as. Can be for everyone.

Annie Holcombe  50:01  
Let's sing Kumbaya. Okay,

Alex Husner  50:06  
really controversial subject. Okay, we definitely want to pick your brains on AI and how much that is just changing, not just destination marketing, but I mean marketing in general, and the world that we all live in, and you've talked about websites potentially going away in the future, and so many more other things. But give your elevator perspective on AI, if you would,

Stuart Butler  50:30  
I'm going to push that on Adam first.

Adam Stoker  50:33  
So AI, to me, is the great equalizer. And first of all, it allows everyone to do more than they ever could before on their own. So I think that's really good. I also think that the the shift that's coming in consumer behavior as a result of AI is something that a lot of people are underestimating. I think that consumers, when it becomes more convenient to use AI for purchasing than it is to use a website, you will see that shift take place very quickly. The problem is the convenience factor has not hit yet, and so I do believe that once the convenience factor happens, we're going to see the adoption scale very, very quickly, and that's why I think it's going to be really critical for those that that need or that have not yet adopted AI in their business practices and marketing practice need to do so the major shift. And then this will be the last part that I say before we kick it to Stuart, that I see is that the value of siloed, tactical execution from a marketing perspective, but also almost anything is radically decreasing. I think, for example, the digital marketing paid ads that people are running that currently require a human to push the buttons that optimize the campaign, you will be able to tell an AI agent, within the next couple of years to execute that campaign, and you won't need a human pushing those buttons. However, the value of the person that knows how to train the agent, because they understand holistic strategy, is going to increase, and there's a separation that's happening, or going to happen, between tacticians and strategists. The value of a tactician is going to decrease, the value of a strategist is going to increase. And I would urge everyone to learn to think bigger in solving problems and not be so married you're not have your value so married to what you do. Your value should be married to how you think, and I think that's the best way to prepare yourself for AI.

Stuart Butler  52:46  
Yeah, I agree. And I think, you know, if you go back and listen to early shows, what you would hear is we were very we're early adopters, and we're very excited. And we thought all this disruption that Adam's talking about was going to happen, but we thought it was going to happen quicker than it did. And quicker than it did. And I think we've since sort of come to the realization that these things do take time, because there is friction. There's actually a law of, I think it's called the diffusion of innovation. Is what it's called. It's like a Everett Rogers, I think came up with that. It's a bell curve, and it basically says the first two and a half percent of any population are the kind of out of the box thinkers, the Steve Jobs type folks, right? They're just going to disrupt and innovate. Then the next I think it's like 12 and a half 13% of people are what I would consider early adopters, of which Adam and I are typically those early adopters. Then the majority of people, like 68% are the folks that are going to wait and see. And I think that's what we're just entering that phase now, right? And I think there's a lot of people that are using AI, but they're using it as they're helping them write better emails tool, right? They're trying to sound smart at all. But I think 2026 is a watershed moment, and there's a couple of factors, right? One is online shopping is now a reality within the llms, right? A lot of folks have signed deals with the big llms to allow transactions right within it. And I think that's that's a game change. I think we've seen an infancy of a browsers that are coming out, which aren't really being used yet by the average person, but I think will become more prevalent as the tools that the browsers have created will get infused into regular browsers. But I think the biggest thing is, Apple just signed a deal with with Google to let Gemini power Siri as early as September of this year. So I think once the Apple devices have a personal assistant that isn't I have to go to a chat bot, it's something I can have a real conversation with, that can actually do real things other than just set alarms and play music, but can actually perform functions within apps. I think we're going to see a rapid adoption of tools. And goes back to that word Adam used earlier, trust, as consumers begin to trust technology to be. Better than them at doing stuff like right now, I would not dream of letting AI book a trip for me, soup to nuts, right? Without supervision, I just don't trust it enough. But I think we're very close to where folks like me will trust, and then eventually everyone will trust. So if we fast forward to what that looks like, right, once we have a tool in our pockets and our fingertips that can perform most daily functions better than we can which is coming and we trust it to do it. Why would I go to 30 websites to do research? I would ask it to do that and give me a summary, because it's going to know me better than I might know myself, know my habits, know my preferences, know my situation, my context, and it's going to help me make decisions in a more streamlined way, so and eventually make the decisions fully for me, versus me even being an author in that so I think in that world, why would a DMO website exist other than to provide information to to the llms, right? So that's one of our roles. Is, how do destinations become the source of truth for a destination, the curator of truth, but also the shaper of the experiences? Because I think one of the consequences to what we're going to see is the brand, the destination brand, is going to lose value in the individual experiences. In a destination are going to have more value. The reason people travel is either to visit people that they know or to go do something very specific, usually, and that's increasing. You know, we've seen the power of things like Taylor Swift. We're going to see it a lot this year with the World Cup. So I think our role has to change, because inevitably, society is going to change how they consume, travel.

Adam Stoker  56:43  
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don't have an argument, because I think Stuart and I, of all the topics that we discuss, I think we're pretty aligned on this one. And I think I don't know everybody needs to prepare as much as they can, because once the convenience factor hits. And like, like Stuart said, once trust is is high in these AI tools, consumer adoption will come. In fact, I think convenience is a more powerful convincer of people than price, and once the convenience factor hits, I think, I think it's happening.

Stuart Butler  57:18  
Yeah, it's not a matter of if it's when, right? When? Yeah, it could be as soon as this year,

Alex Husner  57:23  
removing the inconvenience of having to search, you know, 30 different websites to find the vacation rental or the hotel that you want to stay at. For sure, I think everybody would agree that nobody's gonna be upset about that, but if llms or whatever it is that surfaces the options for you, gives you the options. Now at the end, you have to go actually book it or you, you have to make the decision. Ultimately, there has to be something there for people to see. So it's not like websites are going to be completely off the table because they are going to be relevant. But if they're just not going to be relevant in like, the time, that's the annoying time spent on them there, it's needs to be more convincing convert at the end, I guess. Yeah.

Stuart Butler  57:59  
So I think the content that exists on our websites today has to be accessible, right? Whether that's through MCP, you know, agent to agent, kind of communication, we're going to have to be there was a trend four or five years ago around headless CMS, right? This, this concept of having a content management system for your website that stores all the data, but then you have a mobile app, you have a website, you have a mobile website, you have all these other places where that content exists. I think that's probably where we're heading because of this. Because if I have a personal assistant that's baked into my technology, whether that's my cell phone or my laptop, the concept of having to go from that to a browser to see something that's pre arranged just doesn't doesn't make sense in that future, right? It's going to be what information is relevant to me, that my preferred device and tool is going to know those preferences, and it's going to manifest it to me in the way that I care about like because it's going to know that I don't care about this, but I do care about this, and it's only going to show me the context that I care about.

Speaker 3  59:03  
I think it's very likely, too that these we view our websites as a website, because that's what they've always been. It's very realistic, and in the future, these websites become functional content repositories that that's primary purpose is to feed the llms with the content it needs to serve the correct results to people. That doesn't change the value that your website provides, like, that's still a very valuable thing. But I think a lot of us are going to look at that and say, Oh, crap, my website's worthless now because it's not being used, like a historical website has been used, but the content repository to feed the LMS. Llms may be just as valuable, possibly more valuable, because you're going to get more contextual results for people than than the website was before.

Stuart Butler  59:50  
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think we got to stop thinking of websites as the GUI right, the graphical user interface and how people interact with the content the web. The value of the website is the content. Content and the structure of that content, right? So how does that? We're still going to need some kind of CMS aggregator that houses all the information. That information is actually going to have to get more granular, more atomic in nature, and more contextual. So I think what we're going to have to lean into is, how do we get, like, sort of that bare the core content that everyone's got, but then how do we supplement that with relevance through social proof, by getting things like reviews and testimonials, individualized experiences, stories from people. So if I, let's say Ripley's Aquarium is a place in model Beach, right? It's an attraction, rather than me just having one page, which is, here's a description of what Ripley's Aquarium is. That's no longer necessary, because the llms know as much about it as that page does. Right? So what can I provide that's individualized to it to Alex or to Annie or to Adam that makes them understand this is the kind of place they want to go? Well, what I've got to do is collect stories and experiences and data from people similar to you, demographically, psychographically, behaviorally, that have experienced this, and that's the content that is going to be most relevant to you and inform your decisions in the future.

Annie Holcombe  1:01:13  
So essentially, a DMO just became a library

Unknown Speaker  1:01:17  
in some ways, for sure.

Adam Stoker  1:01:19  
Well, and that's where you get back to, well, okay, well, what is the purpose of a DMO? And if the purpose of a DMO is to build a sustainable tourism economy for the destination, it doesn't matter if the DMO website becomes a library as opposed to what it is today. The job is to evolve with the technology and with the consumer behavior to continue to provide that sustainable tourism economy for the destination that it serves. And one thing that scares me a little bit is with the rate of change, we're also married to where we've found value in the past that we're really hesitant to accept, where things may go in the future, but if you're sticking with the purpose, why do we exist to build that sustainable tourism economy for our beneficiaries, which are the residents, I think we've got to be willing to evolve as much as that requires in order to continue to stay

Stuart Butler  1:02:14  
relevant, and Not just DMOS, vacation rentals,

Alex Husner  1:02:21  
agencies, no one's off the chopping block. Well, this conversation did not disappoint for hopefully, certainly not for us, but hopefully not for our audience either. And we were really looking forward to having it today and excited to come on your show very soon where we're going to talk about some other controversial things. So we'll just bring it everywhere with us this year. But if anybody wants to get in touch with you guys, what's the best way for them to reach out?

Stuart Butler  1:02:45  
Yeah, you can reach out to me at Stuart dot Butler at visit my little beach. Calm, and then just go search for destination. Discourse, and you can listen to Adam Knight. We actually pulled out punches today. We're nicer to each other than that's true. You want to hear us. There was no, we have a whole jingle on everything. That's the one criticism, guys. I love this show. You guys have certainly influencing the vacation rental space, and you're doing a phenomenal job, but you got to have a news jingle, man, like that's, that's the killer app

Unknown Speaker  1:03:19  
as well. Well, we

Annie Holcombe  1:03:22  
might ask Pete to come on and sing for

Alex Husner  1:03:25  
us while we were recording, Pete, he knew he

Annie Holcombe  1:03:30  
wasn't included in the conversation. Oh, gee, yeah,

Adam Stoker  1:03:36  
Adam, what's best? Wait for you for me. Adam at the brand revolt.com you can find me on LinkedIn, Adam Stoker, or, of course, on tourism IQ. And then, just as Stuart said, We'd love for anybody to come check out our show and give it a listen. And if you enjoy, give it a rating

Alex Husner  1:03:52  
too awesome. Well, if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody. You.