I attended the 2012 Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) conference held in Seattle, WA. It was the first time I had gone to this event and it was nice to be there with a strong contingent of destination marketing organization (DMO) leaders from across Canada. 

The conference attracted 1,300 participants from around the world. I was really struck by the quality of the discussions in the business sessions, especially how DMOs are innovating to remain relevant in the face of a rapidly changing business environment.

My three main takeaways that have stuck in my head since the conference:

• The number of DMOs that have abandoned the membership model in favour of a partnership model. The benefit they are seeking is to gain relevance given the highly competitive landscape.
• How aggressively DMO’s are working to be customer driven rather than industry driven. For example, a number of DMOs have taken a bold step of replacing their own membership listings with customer rating systems such as TripAdvisor.
• The quality and variety of suppliers to the DMO community as demonstrated on the floor of the exhibit hall. I was particularly wowed with many of the new tools to helps DMO’s assess the effectiveness of their internet and social media strategies.  

Congratulations to Victoria Isley and the team at DMAI for a well-run event and for an extremely thought-provoking program. And thank you to Marina James from Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. for insisting this was the year that I check out the program at DMAI. 

I’ll return with more notes from the road in the fall when my travel schedule gets busier. In the meantime, feel free to share what you’ve learnt at this or other events you’ve attended. You know the drill by now: tweet your views to me @CTCCEO or leave a note in the comments below.

Michele