2026 Destination Marketing Summit Presentations

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2026
The Delicate Dance of Destination Stewardship: Where Residents and Tourism Can Thrive Together
Kara Franker, Visit Florida Keys
Destination stewardship...it’s at the heart of how we as tourism marketers approach our roles. And it’s not just about increasing visitor numbers. It’s about balancing economic benefits with residents’ quality of life, protecting the environment, and honoring local culture and heritage. In this session, you’ll learn why winning over your residents isn’t optional—it’s essential for long-term tourism success. We’ll explore strategies for engaging local communities, fostering sustainable practices, and creating experiences that delight visitors. By the end of this session, you’ll have actionable tools to become a true steward of your destination, ensuring it thrives for both residents and travelers alike.

Evolution of the DMO: Advanced Destination Promotion and Sustainability
Milton Segarra, Discover The Palm Beaches
As destination marketing organizations adapt to rapid changes in the tourism landscape, Discover The Palm Beaches has embraced an Advanced Destination Promotion and Sustainability (ADPS) model you can use to drive growth and future-proof your DMO. This strategy transforms your destination into a year-round, experience-driven, and financially resilient tourism hub that merges advanced marketing, sustainable revenue generation, and civic collaboration. This session will explore how real-time data, analytics, and technology are transforming marketing effectiveness, alongside innovative financial models to diversify revenue streams. You will also learn strategies for integrating residents and stakeholders into tourism initiatives, ensuring that destination success benefits both visitors and the community.

THURSDAY, May 14, 2026
On Your Mark, Get Set...! Accessibility Is Like a Race Without a Finish Line But There Are Many Starting Lines
Attiyya Atkins, Visit Lauderdale
Kristy Durso, TravelAbility
Patrick Harrison, Visit Tampa Bay
Jake Steinman, TravelAbility
Join TravelAbility for this panel featuring Attiyya Atkins and Patrick Harrison as they share how they began their accessibility journey, illustrating the building blocks of an Accessibility Stack and practical steps your destinations can take to create more inclusive visitor experiences.

Data Sharing That Connects
Frida Bahja, Experience Kissimmee
Whether you are sharing your department’s CRM data with partners, reports from platforms with stakeholders, or highlights of studies with local authorities, you play a key role in your organization’s information dissemination. Furthermore, as more data becomes available for your organization, the challenge will be not just sharing information, but learning how to share it in a way that is meaningful and compelling to different stakeholders. That is the purpose of this session, to explore practical data-sharing strategies to help you advocate for your organization’s impact despite your role or the audience. You will hear how to avoid the “deadly sins” of data-sharing formats and visualizations, and some of the best practices for reporting. Join the conversation on transforming information sharing into a catalyst for partner engagement, market intelligence, and advocacy for tourism’s impact.

Portrait of Family Travel-Autism, ADHD, and Neurodiversity
Ryan Gillis, Tripadvisor
This session explores data-driven insights into how families with autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent needs research, plan, and select destinations. You will examine key demand signals, content cues, and accessibility indicators that influence decision making earlier in the planning funnel. You will review examples of how destinations are using traveler data, search behavior, and sentiment trends to inform inclusive messaging, experience design, and partner alignment, and leave with practical ideas for applying these insights to improve awareness, consideration, and visitation among neurodiverse family travelers.

Work Smarter: How AI Automations Are Transforming Workflows for Small Teams
Jess Bertolini, Visit Sarasota County
In this session, Visit Sarasota County will share how they use AI automations to streamline PR, social media, and web workflows, freeing up more time for meaningful storytelling and visitor engagement while providing immediate transparency for stakeholders. You’ll walk away with practical tools and examples that DMOs of any size can adopt to improve efficiency and consistency. By reducing manual workload, these automations help teams focus on creating stronger content and experiences that ultimately attract more visitors.

How to Attract the Luxury Traveler (Even If You’re Not a Luxury Destination)
Matt Stiker, Madden Media
Melissa Pert, Karsh Hagan
Today’s Luxury Traveler isn’t defined by price point. They’re defined by the desire for experiences that feel intentional, elevated, and aligned with their identity. These high-value travelers stay longer, spend more, and increasingly seek destinations that offer a sense of distinction, whether traditionally upscale or simply offering rare, meaningful, or beautifully framed moments. Destinations of all types can win this audience by clarifying what makes their experience feel luxurious to the traveler—whether that’s exclusivity, authenticity, nature, creativity, hospitality, or the luxury of space and calm. The key is to pair a sharpened brand position with media precision that reaches Luxury Travelers in the premium channels and passion spaces where they shape their travel decisions. This session shows how destinations, even those not perceived as luxury, can build relevance, trust, and long-term loyalty with this influential audience.

Soul of Surf 2.0: Catching the Next Wave
Andrea Mestdagh, Visit Jacksonville
Following the successful rollout of its new Soul of Surf campaign, learn how Visit Jacksonville continued to reinforce its positioning with prospective visitors by engaging the local surf community and tourism stakeholders for the second phase via the SeaGals and Board Stories video series. Hear the strategy and insights behind shifting from Catch Surf and GoPro athletes and influencers in year one to fully spotlighting the locals in year two.

Brand Storytelling in the Experience Economy
Tara Tufo and Rudy Webb, Paradise Advertising & Marketing, Inc.
In today’s experience-driven travel landscape, a destination’s story is its most powerful asset. This session explores how tourism leaders can craft authentic, compelling narratives that resonate with visitors and differentiate their destinations. You will learn practical strategies for integrating storytelling across marketing channels, immersive experiences, and partnerships. Real-world examples will demonstrate how strong brand narratives drive engagement, loyalty, and economic impact. By the end, destination leaders will leave equipped to transform their brand story into memorable experiences that captivate and inspire travelers.

Evolving Partnership Models: Strengthening Community and Industry Success
Santiago C. Corrada, Visit Tampa Bay
This session covers how Visit Tampa Bay has updated its partnership model to better support local businesses and the regional hospitality workforce. Programs include development opportunities for small businesses, community workshops, and collaborations with local schools. TECO’s video series showcasing Tampa Bay’s culinary scene offers another way partners gain visibility. The session also highlights Hospitality Heroes, which recognizes frontline excellence. This approach strengthens relationships and builds long-term value for the destination.

Iron Chef DMO Style: “Secret Ingredient Spotlight”
Jess Bertolini, Visit Sarasota County
Janette Carter, Visit Tampa Bay
Katie Stadius, Zartico
Step into the DMO kitchen for a fast-paced, idea-packed session where destination leaders share how they’re creatively putting data to work. Each panelist will bring their own “dish” to the table, showcasing how they use insight-driven ingredients in different ways to cook up marketing success in their destinations. This isn’t about following a fixed recipe. It’s about experimenting, adapting, and discovering new ways to turn data into something meaningful for your destination. You will leave with fresh inspiration and practical ideas to apply in your own destination.

From Home Town Takeover to Destination Transformation: How a Culture of Collaboration Rebuilt a Tourism Ecosystem
Casey Hartt, Visit Sebring – Highlands County Tourist Development Council
Shellie Phelps-Whitfield, Biggest Fish Consulting
This session will highlight how the momentum from the hit television show evolved into the creation of a Regional Leadership Team, bringing leaders from across the county together to align priorities and to work collaboratively. You will learn practical strategies for overcoming long-standing barriers and converting community excitement into sustained regional cooperation as well as how to develop tourism products that connect a region’s story and how to use partnership-driven strategies to grow visitation and economic impact.

25 Irrefutable Truths About AI for Destination Marketing
Seth Lawson, Epsilon
Artificial Intelligence isn’t the future—it’s the present, and it’s reshaping how destinations understand, reach, and convert travelers. This session unpacks the 25 most powerful, practical truths about how AI is transforming audience targeting, media optimization, and visitor measurement. You will learn how DMOs can use deterministic data to identify actual visitors, personalize creative at scale, and prove ROI with real spending outcomes—not modeled estimates. Designed for both marketing and executive teams, this session will challenge common misconceptions and arm you with a framework you can take back to your teams immediately.

FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2026
Building a Destination Research and Data Ecosystem: How Ocala/Marion County Turns Data Into Decisions
Ktimene Axetell, Director of Tourism Solutions at Arrivalist
Isiah Lewis, Director of Client Relations at Downs & St. Germain Research
Hayley Radich, Account Supervisor at Miles Partnership
Sky Wheeler, Assistant Director at Ocala/Marion County Visitors & Convention Bureau
Visit Ocala/Marion County, Miles Partnership, Arrivalist, and Downs & St. Germain Research will share how a destination can connect complementary data sources into a practical research ecosystem that improves marketing decisions and internal goal-setting. The session will highlight how research, mobility and visitor insights, and media planning outputs can be translated into actionable strategy, and how those same inputs can be synthesized into visitor personas that align stakeholders on who the destination is trying to reach and why.