Transcript:
Adam Stoker: [00:00:01] Hey, everybody before we dive into this episode, which by the way, this is an excellent episode. I'm excited for you to hear the second half of my interview with the Utah Tourism Collective. But before I dive in, we mentioned in this episode, a product called Destination Marketing GPT that is the chat GPT product that we created that took my podcast episodes, my book Touchpoints and put them all into a model that we can now use as your companion as a destination marketer to ask questions.
I referred to the name of that as Destination Marketing GPT but immediately following the recording of that session, Open AI actually released their new guidelines for their store. And in those guidelines, they discourage the use of GPT in the name of these models that are being created. And so in an effort to make sure that we're staying compliant with their guidelines, we changed the name from Destination Marketing GPT to Destination Marketing Agent.
So if you hear that in the episode, just know that that's what I'm referring to. The name of the product is Destination Marketing Agent. You can access it within a Chat GPT premium account and Destination Marketing GPT is no longer the name. Thanks, everybody wanted to make that clarification because you're going to be hearing those words a little bit throughout the episode and wanted it to be crystal clear. I hope you enjoy the rest of our conversation.
Hello, everyone and welcome back to the Destination Marketing Podcast. This is part two of our Utah Tourism Collective update. If you did not tune into part one, I think it would probably be a good idea to jump back. But if you want to keep going or if you're here for part two, we're back with Jason Linder from Ripe, Jason. Welcome back.
Jason Linder: [00:01:48] Great to still be here.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:50] For those of you that don't know, we just basically took the headphones off for 10 minutes and started up again, so we didn't leave but Lauren Neeleman from Spontigo, Lauren.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:02:00] Hi all.
Adam Stoker: [00:02:00] Welcome back.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:02:00] Thank you.
Adam Stoker: [00:02:02] Darren Dunn from Zartico. Welcome back.
Darren Dunn: [00:02:04] It's a pleasure.
Adam Stoker: [00:02:05] Now when we were wrapping up our conversation last time Darren, you posed a question. The reason I wrapped up at that point is like that's going to be a long discussion. And so I wanted to make sure that we gave it the appropriate time for the episode. So, would you mind maybe restating that question so that we can kind of dive back in?
Darren Dunn: [00:02:23] Yeah, looking at the topic of AI, I mean, there's hardly a news site, paper, any magazine, doesn't matter, you see AI every other paragraph. And really last year at this time to think about it, ChatGPT did not exist last year at this time, I think it launched on December 15th. So, look at what's happened in this world in just 12 months. I mean…
Jason Linder: [00:02:49] It's wild.
Darren Dunn: [00:02:49] It's wild and how it's infiltrated nearly everything we do. So my question was to all of you is what are the possibilities of AI in the destination world in an industry that I think all would admit is a bit antiquated? I believe this is going to flip a lot of things on its head. I don't think even myself or maybe you guys could speak differently, but I'm trying to get my arms around how it could possibly be integrated to make either visiting the destination better or looking up information-building itineraries just interested in your thoughts.
Adam Stoker: [00:03:34] Yeah, I want to hear maybe Jason and Lauren your thoughts. I've got a few thoughts but I don't want to dominate the conversation here. So, why don't you guys raise your hand? Who's first? Lauren.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:03:42] Alright, I’ll go. AI is powerful. No doubt. Like I love ChatGPT. She helps clean up my emails and I think that there's a lot of use cases that we haven't even discovered yet, trip planning, itinerary planning, all of the mundane parts of travel. And I also believe zig when everyone's zagging and especially in this world of we're delivering experiences end to end and that needs soul. And as far as I know, AI has not been able to breathe soul into anything they've done yet. That might change.
But for now, we still need brilliant marketers with fresh ideas. We still need itineraries that have like the true best place to eat, the true best appetizer at that best place to eat. And that's a human thing. So I think when we meld the world of technology and the human, the way we tick, that's when we win. One quick example, once Jeff Bezos was asked a similar question on his road, his journey of Amazon and he responded, you know, when everyone else is focusing on how things change, I try to focus on what stays the same. And 100 years from now, people are still going to want great products at great prices with quick delivery. And he says that's my North Star. I focus on those things and so I think in our world people are always going to want unique experiences, beautiful views, incredible food, and to the extent that we all in this travel agency or this travel world can help provide that better, that's when we win.
Darren Dunn: [00:05:13] Wow. Great answer.
Jason Linder: [00:05:14] Solid
Adam Stoker: [00:05:15] I like it. Jason, you want to?
Jason Linder: [00:05:17] Yeah, I mean, AI just, I can't get enough of it and thinking about it and just our world is, it's as Darren said, in 12 months, how much has changed and that's only accelerating and it's only going to continue. And when we think about where that puts a DMO let alone all of us in 12 months from now is profound I think. So, one observation I have is that we're in this huge transition from an era of information to an era of answers. And DMOs are largely about information so that could be a threat. I foresee that there could be an impact to DMO traffic. A lot of the traffic DMOs have excellent authority and do very well accordingly on Google on a Google Search. But as what I believe is we'll see a transition away from the traditional blue links of a Google search. Therefore if people are navigating differently for their information or answers, where does that leave the DMO in their traffic search pattern and capitalizing on that authority that they have?
So I think there's a potential, not a threat, but I think there is a real possibility that they could see a decline in their web traffic. But at the same time, I think there's an opportunity and like Lauren said about authenticity and a true voice, I mean, I see that's what a DMO really represents. If they can anchor into that and focus on that value that they have of what's still the same and use that to where there's all this content commoditization going on and more and more AI content, if they can really leverage and lean into their authentic voice and expertise and authority within the market, then that's a huge strength that they will continue to have.
Not to mention that these large language models are learning off of authority sources like the DMO site. So they need to continue to anchor into that simultaneously though I think because of the potential threat to like their traffic, they need to be prepared to potentially pivot a little bit and look at how they can provide. Like Lauren said, more customized itineraries that are unique. So maybe at the same time embrace AI tools, right? Like how do I use that information to provide very custom itineraries, more answers, maybe even get in more into e-commerce potentially and to be ready for this evolution and maintain relevancy while anchoring into their authority, unique voice and then things that the travelers still really want. So there's a lot going on there and I think there's huge shifts underway.
Adam Stoker: [00:07:57] Yeah, I actually I like both of your points. I think for our audience if we were talking to a group of SEO writers, I think I'd be a little bit more doomsday in my approach here than I would be for the destination marketing industry. I mean, the reality is our product is the experiences, like you said, Lauren as destinations our product is the experiences people have. You can't replace that experience with AI. That being said, I do think that AI we've talked about it on my show a lot where we say, AI is not going to take your job, but smart people that know how to use it probably will, right? And I think that's a really important way to look at AI. So Jason to your point that the AI is going to change a lot of the way we do our job, I think that's really important.
One of the things that I've done that I think is an interesting use case that could translate to the destination world, obviously, I create a lot of content. So I've got the Destination Marketing Podcast, I've written the book Touchpoints. And within our organization, we've had several podcasts that we own that are educational for the tourism industry as well. I've taken all of those transcripts from all of those episodes from the book, from the other shows, I've uploaded it and I've created Destination Marketing GPT. So this is now a Q and A service related to marketing for Destination Marketing that you can go and you can ask questions and you'll get the answer that either Adam or his guests would have given on the show.
And so if you search in you’re premium ChatGPT product right now and search Destination Marketing GPT, that's what you'll find. If you think about the destination's role, the destination's role is to be the authority on information or answers. Now, right Jason? In information for travelers who want to come to the destination, the job is to generate traffic. Well, if ChatGPT is taking some of the Google market share, like you're mentioning, what a destination should do is take that. For some destinations, millions of dollars that they've used for content creation, take all of that content and build your own copilot ChatGPT for the destination where people can use your GPT product to get the tailored questions and answers based on their prompts. So they can say I'm so and so, I'm within this age range, here's the things that I like to do, I'm coming with two people, give me an itinerary.
Now based on all of the content that you've uploaded, that you as a destination have already created, you will have a very customized response to that, that you've already created the content for, you now just need to put it in the right place. P.S. Relic can help you with that if you're not sure where to start.
Jason Linder: [00:10:34] That's really smart.
Adam Stoker: [00:10:37] So really excited for that but that's the type of use case. This is how we embrace a new technology and actually take the work that we've done in the past and not just throw it away and say, okay, now AI is just going to crawl the web and find all the content and give those answers. But instead, it's going to use the content we paid so much money to create over the years and put it to good use.
Darren Dunn: [00:10:58] Well, I think consumer behaviors is going to dramatically change and if DMOs especially don't lean into it. I don't know anybody that actually enjoys the experience of going to a DMO site and having to do 25 clicks to try to put together some sort of itinerary when you could just stay on the home page and ask a question, give it some relevant information and say, tell me everything that's greatest in your destination. Let's do this.
People just want answers, they want answers, they want suggestions. I think to Lauren's point on the soul part, I don't know that soul will ever happen in the AI from a leisure standpoint and even from booking group or conventions. It's the soul of the cities that actually sells it and nobody's going to do that better than the DMOs themselves. I think allowing the greater the Chat GPTs and so forth. I think these larger AI engines, Google, ChatGPT, Microsoft, I worry about them having bias because I think DMOs are empowered to give the underserved voices whether it's women and minority-owned businesses, itineraries that might involve indigenous lands and people if they're looking for tourism. The large AI engines, they're going to skip over that, they're going to go to what's most popular.
Adam Stoker: [00:12:25] They don’t capture nuance.
Darren Dunn: [00:12:26] Right, versus what needs to be served. How do you balance your ecosystem within your city so that all people benefit from this visitor economy? That's on the backs of all of us to be honest with you.
Adam Stoker: [00:12:42] Well, it goes back to the fact that if a destination is doing their job, they're going to own the conversation and so you mentioned that there's a lot of content out there that might not provide the nuance that you want to provide. Well, most destinations have said, here's how to navigate our indigenous lands. If they've got that, they've got how to travel responsibly. If you create your own AI tool through the ChatGPT release that's been done, now it's going to speak in your voice instead of a random blog post from an influencer or something like that, that didn't do the same -- didn't take care of the land in the same way.
So I really think it's important for destinations to understand if you don't tell your story, if you don't own your content, someone else will and it'll hurt the visitor experience.
Darren Dunn: [00:13:27] There you go.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:13:28] And then clean up the loose ends. A few minutes ago, Darren, you said something that was impactful to me. I think Jason and I were both nodding frantically because, and maybe this is the third rail I'm not allowed to talk about yet, but I'm new here. So I'm going to.
Darren Dunn: [00:13:42] This is Adam's podcast.
Adam Stoker: [00:13:43] I’m in.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:13:44] Sometimes I audit, actually a lot of times I audit DMO websites and it's not always a great visitor experience. In fact, sometimes it's a really frustrating visitor experience like you mentioned the 25 clicks to get anything of value to get to the point where you can actually book something, and to get to the point where you can like create this itinerary that can be a totally cumbersome process. And I'm not sure exactly why, I mean, I think it has to do with equal opportunity and the destination is trying to represent all of their stakeholders equally, I think that's part of it. I think part of it is because small businesses inherently are a revolving door. And so when I audit these websites, it's not uncommon for me to find 20 to 30% of the links broken. So here are all the things to do in this destination and then I start clicking the links and some of them are broken and go to 404 Page, 404 errors.
Others are like, not seasonal. So they're rep being sledding in the middle of summer or ice castles in the middle of summer and so it's kind of a bummer and I think we can do better.
Adam Stoker: [00:14:49] That sounded like a specific call out.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:14:51] No, it's the one I was looking at yesterday. But in general, it's just a bad experience. And so I think we all need to leverage the tools that are already available and then embrace tools as they come and infuse the soul. And when we do that, we win.
Adam Stoker: [00:15:08] I like that and it actually leads to a pivot that I want to make because I'd like to hear everybody's thoughts on state of the industry.
Darren Dunn: [00:15:13] We're going to talk about something else.
Adam Stoker: [00:15:16] Yeah, let's talk about something else, now that Lauren touched the third rail. No, I actually, and by the way, I agree with you 100%. There is no disagreement here. I've tried to plan because I'm in the industry I've tried to plan multiple trips using destination websites and I've had to give it up on each one. Like I have never been able to complete a trip booking by just using the destination website.
Jason Linder: [00:15:37] And I think I just have to, you're so spot on and lodging is such an example. And I've been preaching this for a long time. The idea that a traveler is going to go to a DMO site and click through 100 different links to different lodging providers that may or may not be available is so antiquated that worked in the like early nineties when it was a phone book links, but that's not what they want. And so I think lodging has been a representation of that and that's why we come in and try to say, no, you have to provide a service that meets their demand of what they're doing. And now this is just amplifying it across the board.
Adam Stoker: [00:16:12] Yeah. Now, as we talk about the state of the industry, an observation that I have is I've heard lots of people say that this industry is a me-too industry, right? You get a couple of destinations trying something, next thing you know, everybody wants to try it. What that creates though is a huge problem and an example that I'm going to give. And of course, I'm really good friends with Stuart from Visit Myrtle Beach. So I'm a little bit biased in my description here, but they worked with MMGY to create an incredible campaign using AI only.
And so they asked ChatGPT if we were going to rebrand Myrtle Beach and they gave it a whole prompt. What should that look like? What would the name be? And AI spat out that Matari Best was the name that they should rebrand too. And AI wrote the landing page, AI wrote everything. The brilliance of what MMGY and Stewart and his team came up with is that they were the first ones to not only go through the process of exploring it, but then publishing the results. So they got written up twice in Ad Age, which is in advertising, one of the major publications out there. They got tons of earned media because they were the first to try it and to go public with it. And they literally ran paid ads and they also did a big-time Reddit thread with this. They got tons of coverage.
But they ran a campaign with a ridiculous thing that was spat out by AI, right? Like they're not going to rebrand to Matari Best, but they demonstrated the use case so early on that they got the earned media because they were first. In this industry being first is something that everyone is afraid to do. Let's not be a me-too industry anymore. Let's try stuff because we want to try it because we think it might be different not because Philadelphia tried it so now I know it works.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:18:03] Love that.
Darren Dunn: [00:18:05] I completely agree. I like to call it the golfer effect where the golfer comes up, sees what the other golfer is doing and then goes back in the hole. It's tough because you're using public money. Right? Technically, public money or you're some sort of fashion of the government, so the moves that are made in this industry tend to be very conservative and they want to see that it's working somewhere else, nobody really wants to be first. There's a decent handful of early adopters in this industry. Thank God or… exactly of risk takers and there's probably more trust and you, Adam or you Jason or you Lauren. They're trusting their government dollars, their tax dollars with you. That's a big thing.
So I do hope we can get innovative and move away from it from it. I love what they have attempted to do with Myrtle. I'm kind of glad you just said that because now I have the name of my next dog Matari Best. So, yeah, I hope we can get there. And I think in terms of conferences and education, one of the tough things I think in this industry is it's all our industry talking to our industry and teaching our industry. What would be great is if we can bring innovation from outside the industry, what are other industries doing? What are best practices there? They might take that risk if they see that Ford’s doing this kind of innovative thing or somebody else where they can actually say that to their board because that's ultimately who they have to answer to.
Adam Stoker: [00:19:43] Totally agree. I want to hear from Jason and Lauren.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:19:46] Well, I think that a lot of industries actually operate like this where everyone's a little bit hesitant. Isn't there that old phrase that you never got fired by taking… someone help me out here.
Darren Dunn: [00:19:59] Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:20:02] Exactly. Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. And it can be, if you keep doing the status quo, then you can't get fired for taking a risk. And that's just an age-old principle. However, risk-takers have upside rewards as well. So if you're doing something that hasn't been done before and it works and it works well and then you can become a role model in your industry and that comes with all of the accolades and the praise and the gratification, internal and external. So I think risk-taking is great and I also understand why more people don't do it.
Darren Dunn: [00:20:36] Especially as a founder.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:20:37] Exactly.
Jason Linder: [00:20:38] For sure. Yeah, you were saying just to me resonates in the conference market and everyone talking to each other and themselves and the content really lacks that outside innovation. I think is a big opportunity. There's a gap whether it's technology or other leaders in different spaces. And I think one example is that the vendors I notice are to the side, if you will, and a lot of the vendors might represent technology innovation, things like that. And I think that's just kind of an example of that the content is missing.
One of my favorite conferences this last year was the Connect Conference because they really put together more of the vendors and the DMOs. I think that's an opportunity for the vendors, but equally for the DMOs because I avoid vendors like the plague myself. And so, but when you have this opportunity to really talk to all of them, I think there's that opportunity to learn some outside perspectives and is maybe that example of different voices.
So I think at a small level like bringing those two together more is an opportunity, but then more broadly, I think there's a big myth here to learn and do things differently from other industries and it's pretty exciting that we could do things differently.
Darren Dunn: [00:22:00] Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:22:00] Yeah. It's interesting stuff. I struggle a little bit with the incentive structure in the industry because what I mean –
Darren Dunn: [00:22:11] Can you explain that?
Adam Stoker: [00:22:12] Yeah. What I mean by the incentive structure is you've got people who are funded by government tax, right, or lodging tax or however you want to describe it, right? So we're funded that way, we're made up of a board of stakeholders who essentially want to build their individual businesses in a lot of cases. So that means the board is going to pay attention to what the incentives are for them individually and most of the time it's lodging partners. Right?
So then we've got the employees of the tourism destinations, there isn't a lot of upside for those individuals to take risks unless it pays off in a big way. Right? And so I agree with both of you touched on the fact that in this industry when we can't even measure, and Darren's doing a lot of work to fix this right now. But when we can't even measure the impact of some of our efforts, sometimes if we take a big risk, we actually can't demonstrate the payoff and we also can't prove the failure either.
And so we're taking these budgets that are somewhat established and doing what feels safe in most cases. And I think that the incentive structure kind of paves the way for a whole bunch of conservative and safe tactics as opposed to taking risks because there's very low benefit for taking risks to a person, an individual. But there's a lot of downside and that concerns me as far as the state of the industry.
Darren Dunn: [00:23:40] I think a lot of the risk-taking and the incentive structure the problem is if you take a lot of risks, this is, if your goal is to move up in a DMO, you're looking at a very long career path and especially with young people today, no offense. But employing a lot of them, the attention span is shorter and shorter. It's where am I going to be in two years? Likely at a DMO, maybe you'll get a title change.
But I think for those that are DMOs are great launching pads for those that are risk takers, my own co-founder, Jay Kinghorn, he was considered an innovator and a risk taker, he was always the first guy I called when I wanted to try out a product and when I wanted to start a company, he was also the first guy I called and there's lots of examples. Zeke Coleman was largely an innovator. Matt Clement, Leroy Bridges, the list goes on.
So, those people who have kind of tried something new, did something different, shared it with their peers, the private industry is watching. There are big things out there for the risk-takers. So there are incentives depending on where you want to go with your career. You want to stay nice and steady and stay in the DMO business, that's great. That's awesome too.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:25:05] And one thing from all of us around the table I think we could all agree is we genuinely want to help. We're in this industry because we're crazy passionate about it not just because we want your money. So when we go to a conference and we can, but ultimately, like there are a lot of ways to make a living out there and we've chosen this one because we can make an impact.
And so when we're at a conference and we come up to you or when we reach out cold via LinkedIn or email or whatever, it's because we genuinely care and I can't state that enough. I've heard that there's some industry fatigue and that there are a lot of vendors in this space and it seems like there are a lot of newer vendors and I personally fall into that category so I can speak personally. And it's hard, it's hard to break through what's becoming increasingly cluttered.
So I think it's a Yin Yang. It's like we need to be really great. We need to provide profound products and services and offerings that break through the clutter. And, if you'd give us a little bit of time of day to hear our pitch and hear us out and decide if it's worth it for your organization, that'd be very helpful.
Darren Dunn: [00:26:08] I once heard from a DMO marketer I actually believe it was Zeke, I can't guarantee that when I used to call on him at Savannah, but he told me he would pick one vendor he didn't know every single week and just listen to him. He forced himself to do that as a habit to actually learn what was out there, what potentially is missing. Maybe he liked it, maybe he didn't, but he would or she, I can't remember, would just pick one a week and take a listen. I think that's a strong way to grow and also to have real situational awareness of all the opportunities that might be in front of your DMO.
And Lauren, I appreciate you bringing it up. I have worked in tourism now for 22 years. I wear my passion on my sleeve. I've started two companies focused on it and I've worked at a bunch in between all focused on the space because first of all, I think whether you're working on the DMO side or the vendor side, we're there because we love it. And everybody kind of has a hospitality mentality and that's refreshing especially when we get to meet in person, which is a much different thing. That's the great thing about conferences. They're not taking your calls, they know they're going to see you at that conference.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:27:25] Zeke actually met with me last week, so shout out to Zeke. I really appreciated his time. So he's practicing what he preaches. I reached out to him cold. He took my meeting gave me incredible feedback, pointed me in some great directions. And so, yeah, for all those Zekes out there, we appreciate you.
Adam Stoker: [00:27:40] Well, this conversation actually reminds me of a really interesting discussion that AJ Brau and I had on my podcast at the Utah Tourism Conference where AJ talked about the fact that in order to innovate in this industry, I go back to the incentives, incentives aren't structured in such a way that DMOs can do a lot of technology and innovation internally so what they need is vendors to push the industry forward, they're not going to be able to take the TBID funds and allocate those funds to building a software or something like that. Right? So the vendors are what actually pushed the industry forward.
Well, what we start with is ideas as vendors and then we need to go get some early adopters like you touched on, but then in order to build what we're trying to build in a lot of cases, we've got to go get funding. Well, what do you have to have in order for a venture capital firm to be willing to put funding into your ability to build this product? They need commitments, early adopters. You Lauren, you're nodding your head yes. Do you want to jump in here?
Lauren Neeleman: [00:28:40] Well, I mean, yeah, it's what comes first taking her the egg? You need people raving fans that are willing to pay you money in order to grow your idea and get investment. But, and so you kind of have to walk this fine line and early adopters make all the difference.
Adam Stoker: [00:28:54] Yeah. And without those ideas, the industry stays stagnant. And so at some level and I can't remember who I spoke with but there was a gosh, somebody I had on my show, but they said that they have a small portion of their budget every year goes to testing new technology and they're going to see if it's going to work because again, the downside is the small percentage of your budget that you may have put into one of those safe tactics might keep you where you are. But if you win, you're going to take that small percentage of your budget and scale it into something that helps the industry as a whole move forward.
Darren Dunn: [00:29:26] Fort Worth does that. Everybody, please don't call Fort Worth.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:29:29] Target on their backs.
Darren Dunn: [00:29:33] But they do set aside a percentage of their budget. Pretty much all my early adopters, that's where I fell into was that let's test and see if it's something that can really change my organization and make a better experience for visitors to my website and visitors to my destination.
Adam Stoker: [00:29:51] Yeah, and there's so much value for the like, if you think about legacy if you actually played a part in being an early adopter to technology that changes the industry for the better, that's part of your legacy.
Jason Linder: [00:30:04] Well, if there was ever a time to do it, it's now with everything we talked about with the AI and transitions, the world is going to be so different. Not way out in the future, we're talking a year or two years from now and so now is the time and we don't know. I mean, it's fair to say we don't know what that's going to look like. And so it's the time to try new things and to embrace and to listen to vendors explore, look at other industries and take on some of these opportunities and think about it differently.
Adam Stoker: [00:30:32] Yeah, the distance between the leaders and the followers is going to get bigger in the next couple of years for sure.
Darren Dunn: [00:30:37] Yep, create a lot of green space. And I think next December is going to look completely different from this December and how we're looking at AI and how to incorporate that. I think you brought up a great point, Adam and that it's the people who learn how to use it. It's not a threat, it's how do you use it to create the differences in your destination and that experience in your destination.
Adam Stoker: [00:31:02] Great stuff. I'd love to wrap, maybe just looking forward to the future. What conferences are you going to and any statements on where you think, what you think we're going to experience or see in 2024? It's an easy one.
Darren Dunn: [00:31:16] Yeah. All the conference. Yeah, pretty much I don't do a lot of state conferences anymore. I'll do Utah if it's not scheduled over the top of something else like it was this year, just saying. Yeah, so all the big ones DI, US Travel, I know we're going to be at TTRA and DI has like, I don't know, six conferences, one which is coming up here in Salt Lake City, which we all need to talk about. So excited to be hosting them here, that would be really exciting. Mountain Travel symposium, which I don't think the rest of you do. But it's a really important trade show for us and that's being held in –
Adam Stoker: [00:31:58] Somewhere in the mountains?
Darren Dunn: [00:32:00] Yeah, it used to be, it used to be squad. I'm trying to think of the name. So yeah, a lot of them looking forward to seeing everybody next year. That's for sure.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:32:06] I'm going to go to as many as possible as some of these guys before we started. But I'm having my first baby in April and so –
Darren Dunn: [00:32:13] Congratulations.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:32:14] Thank you. So my team will try to be at some, I'll try to be as many as possible, maybe with baby in tow and –
Adam Stoker: [00:32:20] On stage with the baby.
Darren Dunn: [00:32:23] That's how you get early adopters. Bring a baby and a puppy.
Adam Stoker: [00:32:28] She's not looking for those early adopters.
Darren Dunn: [00:32:31] But if I reach out to you on LinkedIn in lieu of going to your state conference, that's why. So respond to me, please.
Adam Stoker: [00:32:38] Love it.
Jason Linder: [00:32:39] Well, we'll definitely be out there of course, it shows but maybe I'll take a different approach with the answer and steal a quote from Eric Thompson, our VP of sales and marketing and he likes to say, the place to be is the place you are. So, when I think of the DMO space, that's about being present, enjoying the journey, really focusing on your uniqueness, not what everyone else has and what everyone else is doing. So maybe that's some of that being taking a leap and doing something different, be present. Enjoy the ride.
Adam Stoker: [00:33:11] I love it. Well, I'm excited. It looks like I'm going to be speaking at the North Carolina Tourism Conference in March and definitely going to be at the Marketing Summit here in Salt Lake. I'm excited for that.
Darren Dunn: [00:33:23] Where's North Carolina being held?
Adam Stoker: [00:33:26] It's in Charlotte.
Darren Dunn: [00:33:28] In Charlotte. Yeah.
Adam Stoker: [00:33:30] Yeah, excited for that. It'll be a lot of fun.
Darren Dunn: [00:33:32] We actually our user conference which is in May is being held in Charlotte.
Adam Stoker: [00:33:38] Oh really? Maybe I'll have to go back for that too.
Darren Dunn: [00:33:40] Yeah, you will. You’re invited.
Adam Stoker: [00:33:42] So yeah, go there, definitely doing the DI events. We're going to try to go to as many as we can. We're kind of getting to the point where if we're on stage, it gets a whole lot easier to go to those events and what's kind of fun is more and more events are wanting to have the Destination Marketing Podcast on site to record episodes on site. That's been a lot of fun this year. I think we'll have more opportunities in 2024.
So just excited to see hopefully more and more people be willing to try something different because again, if there's one theme for my comments in this conversation is trying to beat your competitor by doing the same thing they're doing is a losing battle. Like the only thing I can guarantee you is that you're not going to win in that scenario.
Darren Dunn: [00:34:28] It lives in your head rent-free.
Adam Stoker: [00:34:30] 100%. You guys, I'm so proud to be part of this group and appreciate the camaraderie that we have here. I wish we could get together and get all our calendars matched up more frequently. But really excited for what each of you are doing in your individual organizations. Any last minute thoughts or do you want to tell people how to get a hold of you if they have questions?
Darren Dunn: [00:34:49] First of all, wishing everybody health, wealth and happiness as we enter into the new year. To all my current DMO partners and hopefully, future ones, thank you very much for taking a chance on Zartico and we hope to do right by you. And then lastly, let me say, I just so appreciate the randomness that we have like seven companies focused on tourism here in the Salt Lake Basin. And so being able to get together, especially as founders, you only know the pain of being a founder if you're a founder. I think everybody in this room can attest to that. So thank you all for your friendship, Adam. Julie, for setting this up, Lauren, Jason. Great being with you.
Adam Stoker: [00:35:36] Thanks Darren.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:35:37] Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the time. Thanks for listening in and I hope I didn't offend you too much with a critique of your website. But I think I'm just really grateful to be in this space because you all listeners are providing joy and helping to augment your community and I think that's beautiful. You can reach shout out to me at lauren@spontigo.co, I would love to chat. And one last thing I'd say about the early adopters and my commitment to those early adopters is I'll bend over backward. We'll do what we can, we'll do right by you like Darren said and then some will make it so that this was the best line item of your budget because we genuinely want to help you and your visitors to have the most remarkable experience your destination has to offer.
Darren Dunn: [00:36:22] Nice.
Adam Stoker: [00:36:22] Great. I like it.
Jason Linder: [00:36:24] Well, I just want to say thank you, Adam, thanks to Relic for hosting and for having us. It's great to be together and just want to say happy holidays. This conversation has been engaging and thrilling in the sense that I think as founders, we often have our heads down, there's so much to do. And so it's surprising how hard it is even to get together with all of us, these companies here in Utah. So it's just a good reminder too of being present and talking to those around you and learning from each other. So appreciate the opportunity.
Adam Stoker: [00:36:58] And how can people get a hold of you?
Jason Linder: [00:36:59] bookright.com.
Adam Stoker: [00:37:00] Love it. Great website. Just want to get that out there.
Jason Linder: [00:37:03] Sure it is.
Adam Stoker: [00:37:05] Thanks everybody for listening. I also want to wish everybody happy holidays both in this room and those listening. I also want to express my gratitude to everybody who tunes in on a regular basis. It blows my mind looking at the numbers that we've achieved and listening to this show and couldn't do it without our listeners, our guests, and if you're enjoying the show, please don't forget to leave us a rating or a review.
Other than that, if you are interested in having Relic work alongside your current agency and help build audiences that you can influence through owned media, make sure you reach out to me at adam@relicagency.com. Thanks, everybody. Happy holidays and we'll see you soon.
Jason Linder: [00:37:44] Happy holidays. Thank you.
Lauren Neeleman: [00:37:44] Happy holidays. [End of transcript]
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