[00:11:50] Andreas Weissenborn Sure. And interesting obviously, when we’re recording this, Skift recently announced going away from it. 

[00:11:55] Brandon Ehrhardt That they’re moving away from the term. Yes. Yes. 

[00:11:57] Andreas Weissenborn We don’t really believe in the term ‘overtourism’. What we believe in is a failure in destination management. Again, I’ll use that gardening example as well, right? Like, I realise I’m looking at this plot of land in front of me. Like, if I do nothing, a lot of stuff grows through the sun, my grass, soil... but there’s a lot of stuff that grows that I don’t want to grow: weeds, dandelions, stuff that my allergies go nuts for. My role in that is I understand I have to manage the land, right? Tend to the land as part of it. So that I’m able to accommodate what’s in my boundaries and my resources. I think overtourism is seen very much the same way. One of the problems is just the term itself, it instantly weaponises or penalises tourists, right? It automatically puts it in degrading fashion. And that’s not something you want. Tourism for so many communities around the world is not only a viable investment, but it’s one of the few things communities can do to invest in that doesn’t cause you to have to tax the resident, right? Which is political suicide. No politician ever comes out there and says, ‘You know what? Budget’s tight this year, let’s just raise taxes’. I mean, that just doesn’t happen. So, I think when we have to take a look at the term, but understand when management, that also means we have an active role and it means we can actually help guide the conversation, help, again, manage it, steward it, shepherd it as part of it. If you find yourself in a situation where management has not been the best and people see tourism in a negative sense, that is a role for a destination organisation to step in and help garden or tend the land so that they can manage again with those resources, but also educate the community on how viable tourism and tourists are to a community’s vitality. One thing the pandemic taught us is what happens when tourism goes away. Like, a lot of cities are in financial issues because of that, investment is gone. So, you can’t simply just say overtourism, and then not realise the ramifications of what happens when no tourists occur. 

[00:13:58] Andy van der Feltz Andreas, just on that, I work for two different DMOs. One, which is 100 percent government funded. The other one is a private public partnership. Different model. In the US, predominantly, you’ve got DMOs or CVBs that are funded by bed tax. How do you balance that? The community needs to be a liveable area that people are in, right? So, that means the community with the visitor has to find that right balance. How does a CVB or DMO manage the balance between bed tax and, therefore, hotels that continue to add rooms... infrastructure being added to most? Even Amsterdam, incidentally, is still building hotels on the outskirts of the city. So, how do you balance when bed tax actually funds the local CVB, DMO? 

[00:14:46] Andreas Weissenborn Now, that’s a tough nut to crack. I mean, I don’t think we have definitive answers yet, but we’re starting to finally see people question. I mean, one term I do also want to wipe away with is the ‘heads in beds’, because if that’s all you say you do, then you are subject to being lumped into corporate welfare, which is not what we are.  People have to remind themselves that destination organisations are largely non-profits, which means they have purpose over profit. One of our other corner core philosophies around here is: if you value something, you fund it. I think what you’re starting to see destination organisations do, finally, is articulate... We usually call, the ‘unusual suspects’, who benefit from the work when we do. Again, you’re right. A lot of destination organisations’ primary funding comes through, at some sense, from visitors’ tax. But if you think about it, how many other people benefit from a positive brand? One thing: just go to the talent acquisition aspect here. So many of the communities have a need right now for highly skilled, highly educated workers. The issue is how do we get attention on the community to want to live here or be here? We believe that those entities should be at the table and help support and fund destination organisations because they benefit when a community’s brand does well. A good example, you think about three and a half years ago, when Amazon was trying to put out their HQ2 bid, and all these people were throwing mad tax tariffs and stuff to get it to come. But what Amazon finally signed on was, ‘Well, we need a community that has a positive brand, so people who are highly educated will not only want to work here but will like to live here as well’. I don’t see any reason why someone like Amazon, I’m not saying this would happen, but Amazon or other private entities shouldn’t be at the table to help fund this entity. I really think funding is part of the equation. We’ve seen prominence in what we call ‘tourism improvement districts’ as well, which can be funded from a hotelier, but doesn’t mean they can’t be funded from other districts as well. Arts and cultural, wine, cannabis, craft brewery, whatever. Anything that a community wants to value, they should be able to fund it. Now, I hope that’s something in my lifetime, we start to see more and more. Another one, point blank, is, I also believe the government has a role to play in just simply providing funds out of the general fund sans visitor tax. No one bats an eye because the government funds clean water and infrastructure. You want a brand, you want at the world stage, you want to invest in economic development, why not also provide investment towards destination promotion as well? We’ve still got a long way to go to shape that, especially in the United States, which is so more prominently by the hotel architects; other parts of the world... you know, they’re just tapped into the general fund. But I hope that’s starting a shift we’re starting to see as people understand, again, you value something, you should fund it. 

[00:17:29] Brandon Ehrhardt I got a three-parter. I’m going to ask you one at a time, though. First one is—and this is based out of my own curiosity from this discussion we’re having is—sounds like there’s multiple funding models, whether it’s publicly funded, it’s a partnership. Talk to me about the difference in the way the DMO operates based on their funding model. Is there a material difference or are these organisations operating pretty much similarly, it’s just the funding is different? 

[00:17:55] Andreas Weissenborn Good question. And it does vary from region to region. So, let me just do the largest demographic of our membership, which is North American based, just to understand that. We’re really talking about public dollars. So largely, we see destination organisations get a portion of the hotel tax that, again, goes to the government and is levied down, which makes it public dollars. So, when you stay at some type of occupancy—whether in some place left in regulation of, it’s a charge, it’s a percent, short-term rental versus a traditional hotel. That money is collected, goes to the government, and the government usually has a contract with a local entity, the destination organisation, with what percentage they get. And that varies. Some get 100, some get 50 to 60, whatever it might be. So, when you think about it, when the destination organisation does well, that investment of tourism mostly goes up and the destination organisation gets more funded. Again, that’s through a government entity. You’re seeing another one, which is again what we call ‘tourism improvement districts’, where it’s issued on behalf of a district itself. So, most commonly, we see hoteliers, again, where they are adding on an additional charge or percentage that this time goes directly to the destination organisation—it does not go through the government as part of it. Private investment varies in a couple of different ways. Most common, we see membership or partnership models where, the supplier side, your restaurant tours, your attractions... they pay for some level of investment back into the destination organisation to have their restaurant or whatever their asset might be, on the websites, the quick guides, the branding and stuff as part of it. In other parts of the world, it’s just a cut from the government’s budget. Now you’re at the whim of politicians for how much it might be, might go up, might go down, but you’re not tied to the same sort of trimmings of like, ‘We have to always buy for hotel room nights to make this dollar go up’. You’re just at the mercy of the politicians, how they feel about tourism. Some of the more common ones that we see across especially United States and North America. 

[00:19:54] Brandon Ehrhardt So, you can easily see how the funding model will change your actions as a DMO based on where you’re going to be getting it. And going back to your heads-in-beds comment; if you’re incentivised, just put heads in beds. It’s a little bit easier to take your eye off the broader travel picture, and actually what you want to create the destination to be. 

[00:20:12] Andreas Weissenborn Yeah, and that was my comment about what I call the ‘usual suspects’. We understand if tourism does well, hoteliers and those suppliers are natural benefactors of it. They should be at the table to fund this. But my point a little bit earlier was, there’s a lot of other folks who benefit from a positive brand. We should be bringing them to the table as well—as considering funding—because, again, when a destination organisation does its job well and competes and participates and invests, it grows the whole pie of a community. 

[00:20:42] Brandon Ehrhardt So, despite the differences in funding model, is there a challenge that’s shared across DMOs currently? 

[00:20:49] Andreas Weissenborn Oh yeah. Relevancy, that’s the number one, right? You asked me an earlier question: how would you describe what a destination organisation is? Well how many people even know what it is? It will always come down to relevancy and engagement. Those are always the two things. You know, it’s sad to say it took the pandemic, in a lot of ways, for people to wake up and realise, ‘Oh, crap, we have no tourists this year. What do we do to restart this? Oh, we got this thing called a destination organisation. Maybe we should invest in it’. It always comes down to relevancy and engagement, making sure that people fundamentally understand what we do, so they have the opportunity to value us and hopefully fund us, but then also be engaged with us, that they understand that our number one customer—a destination organisation’s number one customer—is the resident of the community. Our role is to increase community vitality. It’s just making sure that message is there and heard and understood. And we have a lot of room to catch up there. Again, the community-shared value philosophy comment, right? You all know since we were kids, right? You drink water to be healthy, right? It’s a fundamental sustaining life source. We understand to be safe, we need firefighters to put out fires. We’ve got a lot of room to catch up with destination organisations articulating why destination promotion is equally on that same pantheon of importance for us. So yeah, relevance and engagement, it’s never-ending. It’s really advocacy we’re talking about. I think every new leader in the destination organisation space, it’s that component of advocacy which articulates community and relevancy that’s going to be never-ending. We just have a lot of ground to catch up to make up for lost time. 

[00:22:24] Brandon Ehrhardt Cool. I’ll round up my trifecta. When you look into the global space, North American space, which DMOs are doing that very well today? 

[00:22:33] Andreas Weissenborn I have a lot of favourite destination organisations that I think are doing the job that are sort of unnoticed. I mean, it’s very easy to point out these super-large budget destination organisations that do great job, and a lot of them do. But I always like to point out the average operating budget for our membership is majority under three million, which is not considerably very large. So, you have a lot of these smaller destination organisations. I’ll do one: Champaign-Urbana, Indiana, if you’ve never been before. That small-person operation, you know, you’re talking less than ten people or whatnot, but they’re involved in every single decision as part of the community, as a solution, as part of it. To me, that’s what we call a ‘community-shared value’. Someone who’s there and seen as part of the solution to help with stuff as an aspect of it. I think really to the pandemic, we saw a lot of really unique scenarios of destination organisations being put in positions that they had not been before, but luckily we had a platform. Like as a reference, as a video visit Norfolk did, where they articulated what they can’t wait to get back once not only pandemic ends, but what it means for having tourism and tourists as part of it. But there’s so many communities now around the world who are engaging in something before that—the pandemic has gotten their opportunities, as part of it. That’s hard to pick, a favourite. And particularly, they’re ones that are doing it with far fewer dollars than you imagine. 

[00:23:57] Brandon Ehrhardt Yeah, and I love that you picked some out that weren’t the ones that you’d be thinking, like Norfolk and Virginia. Champaign, which is just down the road from me here in Chicago. Super interesting. 

[00:24:10] Andy van der Feltz I wanted to add, Andreas, to your relevancy and engagement—spot on I think—is one that I agree on with you. I think there’s one other one which binds them. It’s just not necessarily in their... the bindings, not around the priority of it. And that’s the sustainability discussion. I think anyone who plays in the world of travel has got to have an opinion and make their thoughts heard around sustainability, broad subject matter, many subjects underneath that, whether it’s ecology, environment, industry, employment, etc. So, it’s an extremely broad one, but I think that’s what unites all these DMOs, it is just... there is no tying into one strategy around that. Because I won’t name the DMOs, but there are some which are driven so much by managing the ADRs that sustainability is the furthest thing from their mind. When we look at the advancement going forward, and truthfully, I’m going to coin a phrase which I don’t think it’s a million miles away, but the ‘tourism quotas’. So, I’m sure you’re aware of fishing quotas around the world. You can only catch so many fish, right? But I don’t think we’re a million miles away from getting to a point. I know it’s incredibly difficult to manage. I’m putting it out there, but I would love to hear your thoughts around tourism quotas around the world to a point where, you know, it becomes manageable because, if you look at it, tourism continues to grow at 5.8 percent, expected to grow—which is way higher than the GDP and just, in general, to 2.8 globally. So, it’s going to be there. What are your thoughts around something that is as drastic of tourism quotas? 

[00:25:44] Andreas Weissenborn It’s an interesting concept, and I agree with you that I don’t think it’s far outside the realm of it occurring. I think I want to comment on your term, ‘the GDP’. GDP was invented post-World War II as a way to share information about commerce, and particularly to America, which has been such a largely capitalistic society. We’ve seen what happens when all you do is chase growth, right? Chase GDP and increased tourism is an output of that. But some of these assets—particularly environmental or natural ones—do have limitations, physical, environmental limitations. That’s not something you can out-market per se or gauge the capacity for. My point is that if that is the scenario, the destination organisation still has a role to play and manage that. I want to use the term ‘etiquette’. I think that’s something you’ll start seeing more and more, as we call it, ‘tourism etiquette’. A couple of good examples. This really seems like a lifetime ago, when the biggest issue we had was just scooters, where commuters are freaking out about e-scooters and whatnot. And one of the best examples I always love to point to was Portland, Oregon. They had a really nice etiquette sheet on their website that said if you’re going to travel to our community and use an e-scooter, here is proper etiquette for visiting our community as relates to that. I can very much see—again with the notion of those come to pass—of quotas paired with etiquette. You know, if you’re going to visit our community during these times because of it, here is proper etiquette to enjoy it as part of it. I think it has to be a pairing. It can’t just be quotas and then binary, and then that’s it. I think you have to pair it with some semblance of etiquette. Again, that’s where I hope destination organisations take a role in articulating that, so they understand why, if they have a quota, why this etiquette component or why—that responsibility, I should say—is part of the equation as well. 

[00:27:36] Andy Van der Feltz Yeah, I love that. And I think Iceland has done something very similar, where they put it on the visitor to make the adult or the responsible decision in terms of how they treat the environment that they’re in. So, I think that’s an absolutely spot-on place to be with that. Remaining on tourism in general, as I say, it will continue and not just in GDP—and apologies for making it so crude—but you know, if you look at just the total numbers around the world that will continue to travel. There are rising middle classes in the emerging economies, although they’re emerging pretty fast. What I’m also tending to see now, and perhaps with the more mature DMOs around the world, is chasing the high-value guest. So, the interpretation is: fewer people staying longer, spending more. So, you’re going to have everybody fighting over what they perceive as the high-value guest. Who, in your opinion, is going to continue to want to have the lower- or mid-value guest? 

[00:28:33] Andreas Weissenborn You know, I’m not an economist, so it’s kind of hard to answer that aspect of it. What I will articulate, though—regardless if you are high- to low-valued guest—you’re still chasing the same thing, which is experience, right? Something fundamentally emotional to the human condition is that you are chasing something that you can’t battle with logic. That’s sort of the point we’re arguing is: how do we articulate and provide investment back on values-based decisions here? What I think will occur is, again, if everyone’s going to be chasing that experience as part of it. And I think that leaves room for many destination organisations to put their values out there to garner that attention. So, where maybe... it may not equate to high-dollar investment. I do believe it will reoccur as high-experience investment as part of it. That’s a tough one to answer because I don’t think any destination organisation sets out to say ‘I’m targeting just these tiered travellers’. Everyone’s just trying to attract an experience, and how can we provide the best experience, regardless of where you are socio-economically? 

[00:29:38] Andy van der Feltz Yeah, I agree with that. I think, in general, the experience is what people chase. However, it does come at some point to the economic impact that it leaves behind in the city or region. So, it’ll be interesting to watch this one as it continues to develop around the world. Now, I’m just going to follow up with the data that comes out of that. I mean, in terms of... the utilisation of data from a DMO’s perspective has changed over the years. It used to be just instead of reporting the performance, what would you say are the biggest changes in data utilisation and the type of data that the DMOs are looking for today? 

[00:30:12] Andreas Weissenborn Yeah, absolutely. We firmly live in what I call the ‘golden era’ of data acquisition for destination organisation. When I started my career, I mean, it’s not that we were rudimentary. It wasn’t like it was the Dark Ages, but it was in comparison to everything that’s accessible now through geolocation data to impact data to consumer spend data. It is incredible. What I say, though, has really changed, is understanding the responsibility of it. Data in itself is worthless without any sense of a story behind it. And we’ve really seen, and really through the pandemic, how much our society has shifted from a logical society to an illogical one. And I don’t mean that as a negative sense. I mean that as the opposite of logic, which is emotion. We make decisions based on emotions and story first, and then we find the logic, the data, to back it up. The point being is that even though we might have a cornucopia of data now, if your first articulation is data first and ROI first, you’re always going to lose the argument for why you matter, why engagement. And I think that’s really something destination organisation leaned into. I like to call it left-brain data versus right-brain data. Your left brain is your sequential, your linear, your math. So, that is like, ‘Oh, our rising RevPAR, that is our room rate acquisition, that is our visitor spend’. We’ve leaned so far left that we’ve forgotten to incorporate what it means for a sense of belonging to our community, what it means for a sense of, again, the right-brain metric story, emotion. What I’m trying to articulate here is that I think we have so much data. It’s now the added responsibility of how you articulate it, that I hope destination organisations use the data to articulate story and emotion first. Not saying we can’t go away from data on ROI, but to make sure, again, this is a one-two punch. Your first punch is your story and your emotion, and then you back it up with the ROI and data. So again, you articulate a sense of story, of belonging, experience, and then it’s like, ‘Hey, it sounds like you guys are doing a lot of great stuff. Can you back it up?’ Then you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, here’s our RevPAR, here’s our geolocation data, here’s our marketing ad buy plan to the nth degree to back it up’. That’s what I think really is starting to change and starting to pivot a little bit is that not just pushing data out first, but actually articulating a proper narrative and story so people are making those emotional decisions: connect first, and then you cement it back with your ROI statements and RevPAR and stuff like that, so... 

[00:32:39] Brandon Ehrhardt Shifting gears but staying on the theme of stories. I think something that we talked about a few weeks ago on a previous episode was the concept of what we’re terming, ‘set-jetting’. So, travelling to a destination because you saw it on television or you wanted to experience it. What role does a DMO play in either bringing films, bringing TV shows to a city, or publicising that the show or TV was filmed was shot there? 

[00:33:09] Andreas Weissenborn Yeah. Set-jetting, man. I have a toddler, so I just can’t fathom that world yet. I hope, one day. 

[00:33:14] Brandon Ehrhardt We just make up words here. It’s OK. 

[00:33:16] Andreas Weissenborn It’d just be cool to be like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to leave my life for a bit, I’m going to go there’. Yeah, that’s actually one of the really—I don’t want to say we’re post-pandemic yet—and destination organisation have been asked themselves, you know, ‘How do we rebuild in terms of departments and positions?’ And the one that I have seen repeatedly now is the investment in particularly film- and music-based commissions. Meaning a department solely dedicated to getting a film shot in their community. Obviously, one of the biggest and most prominent in the world right now is everything with Georgia and Atlanta, like the ‘House of the Mouse’ has moved from Florida up to Georgia for all things Disney, Star Wars and that type of stuff. There’s a destination organisation at the core of that who has a film commission, whose role is to help book those films and to say, ‘Hey, this is a great place to film here’. And of course, tax assets and things like that as part of it. But look at all the great assets we have to shoot to get a sense of our culture as part of it. I’m excited for that. I mean, I think again, not just for the supplier side of hoteliers, but then saying, ‘Well, we can actually now start booking film events and film shootings and stuff like that as part of’. So, they very much have a role to play in that. And I do expect in the next five to ten years, you’re going to see more destination organisations announcing a film commission or sports commission department for exactly that asset. 

[00:34:38] Brandon Ehrhardt So, I think when we think about destination travel, and I’m going to use, like, The White Lotus, people see this amazing destination and they travel to it. They look it up while they’re watching this show. That kind of desire to experience deeper what you’re seeing on TV, exists at that level at The White Lotus, but it also exists just to immerse yourself in the experience. So, Baltimore, Maryland. One of the most popular TV shows, at least in the US, The Wire, was shot in Baltimore. You compare the scenes and settings of The Wire to The White Lotus. They’re starkly different, but I know that there is travel associated with both. So, depending on what film or movie is shot, does it change the approach of the DMO and how they publicise it? 

[00:35:25] Andreas Weissenborn That’s a great question. Certainly, during my time, I visit Baltimore and I need to remember too, Baltimore in particular. It’s not just The Wire, but prior to that it was actually the show Homicide after The Wire, the most recent David Simon one I’m blanking on—the gun, task force one is part of it—just from my perspective. Because other communities have what we call these flashpoints, where your attention is instantly drawn to your community, but not always for the right reasons. Charlottesville is another great example of that. I think, at the core of it, one thing that destination organisations have to lean in to is authenticity, right? You know... you can’t really stand on a ground while saying, ‘Well, this is all just fiction’, right? Because the point of the matter is: perception is reality and the way we articulate stuff now. What you see destination organisations do, like Visit Baltimore, is they really leaned into what authenticity means as part of that. And there are other communities going through this now as well. Not everyone has the benefit of a White Lotus show. I think it‘s really trying to lean into your authenticity as part of it, and understand that it’s a battle of perception that will always be ongoing. 

[00:36:32] Andy van der Feltz I’ve got a litany of questions, Andreas that, I’d love to ask you and continue to. We work closely with the DI obviously, and continue to do so from a media solutions point of view as well. There are so many trends that are happening in the world right now. Is there a key one, do you think, ‘Let’s keep an eye on this particular trend’? And you’re obviously head of research and analytics there—you have your finger on the pulse, I would say, in terms of what the trend in destination management is coming down the road. What is the one that really sticks out where you say, ‘This is something which we need to be aware of’? 

[00:37:02] Andreas Weissenborn I’ll go back to one of the earlier questions you asked me about what are the biggest challenges, and that is engagement and relevancy. Because of our funding model being so much prominently, again, around hotel room nights prior to that kind of stuff, you’re finally starting to see destination organisations enter the foray of advocacy and engagement. So, the trend that I’m trying to articulate is: destination organisations are either learning how to hire lobbyists or get involved politically—trying to get more involved than what it means in terms of grassroots advocacy. So, when you are faced with unwelcoming legislation or... any type of flashpoint, frankly, is part of it, you actually have some semblance of grassroots already embedded in your community to help to still articulate and push forward. I think that’s one of the most prominent trends. Now obviously, I can name other stuff off... travel trends, things like that, but as it relates to destination organisations, I really think you’re starting to see this pivot in investment and advocacy and grassroots engagement from just staffing—just actually having someone on staff who’s got the role of advocacy or community relations, or engagement or whatnot, as part of it. That’s all the way to hiring lobbyists and stuff like that. That’s really one of, I think, the cornerstone investments I’m seeing in trends—particularly through the pandemic, when you have to remember—destination organisations in particular, they were one of the last to get funded when shit really hit the fans. They were on the very bottom end of it. That really articulated that we still had a long way to go to articulate why we are important and why we should be funded. And you’re starting to see destination organisations start to say, ‘OK, we can’t be seen as the last at the table anymore. We really got to find ways to bolster, again, our advocacy, community engagement, so that we are thought of first and not only the last to be invited to the table, when now, we can actually set the table’. So, I think that’s one of those prominent brands. People are starting to take up the role of saying, ‘You know what? It’s not just sales and marketing anymore. Advocacy has to be added to my repertoire’. And you’re starting to see that from staffing to departments to project management, all of them down the stack there. 

[00:39:08] Andy van der Feltz Hallelujah. Love it. And the last one from me. Where are you going for the summer with your toddler, just to get away?

[00:39:14] Andreas Weissenborn Good question. So, not to plug, but I do have a major event in the middle of my summer, which is our annual convention in July in Dallas. So, I will 100 percent be in Dallas for over a week. But I’m actually a very family-first individual. I do have a couple of planned camping trips across... local in my area that are driving that I hope to get to with my family and, hopefully, also some longer stay ones. I travel up and down the Northeast because I’m not a fan of the heat, so I like to try to go as far north as possible to avoid the heat and humidity. So, hopefully, you’ll find me quite a bit up latitude-wise through camping and other stuff outside with my family for the summer. 

[00:39:51] Brandon Ehrhardt I’m going to need some tips. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old toddler and he wants to go camping. And I’m a little nervous to venture past the backyard. But we’re going to do a backyard excursion here soon. But that sounds like a great summer. This was really fun for me too. 

[00:40:04] Andreas Weissenborn I would just say, if you want to learn more about what we do and the work we do at Destination International, just check us out at DestinationsInternational.org. 

[00:40:14] Brandon Ehrhardt Andy, what a great interview with Andreas, right? I mean, really awesome insights. I wasn’t planning on talking about The Wire in this discussion. We fit a whole lot of topics in. It’s just great to talk with someone who understands the day-in and day-out of what’s needed for destination management. So much to learn from the conversation. Andy, we didn’t get to hear about your summer getaway, though. What do you have coming planned? 

[00:40:38] Andy van der Feltz Well, Baltimore is certainly on the list. I’m off with my teenage sons to New York and here’s the shameless plug, incidentally, for some research that’s coming out on the Path to Purchase. I’m way against what you’d understand in terms of Path to Purchase, but I changed my mind at the nth hour. Everything was planned to go to Barbados. I booked the flight, I had a 24-hour cancellation period, and on the 18th hour, I cancelled the flight and booked all three of us to go to New York instead of Barbados. Why? Because I checked the weather reports for the Caribbean in August. It didn’t look great. So, New York it became. That’s my summer holiday. I’m looking forward to it. 

[00:41:14] Brandon Ehrhardt Andy, I do want to ask you a question, because you’re so much more ingrained in the DMO space than I am. What were some of the big takeaways that you had from this episode? 

[00:41:25] Andy Van der Feltz Look, I think it’s such a fast-moving subject matter. Depending on where you are in the world, who’s financing, what are the mandates? So, you have all these subject matters around sustainability, about bed tax, about growth, about economic impact. It’s such a diverse group of objectives and goals that these organisations have to achieve, and none are akin to each other very often, especially when you start looking at the financing of it. It’s almost a full-time job to keep abreast of it and understand where they’re heading with it to really far-ranging differences. You got Canada on one side that’s desperately looking in terms of how they can become and maintain a sustainable business out of tourism. And then Saudi Arabia on the other side, which is us entering into the race of sustainability from there, but it’s not at the highest level that you would expect it in comparison to those destinations that have been in there. So, for me, it continues to evolve. And when I joined the DMO as it was then, it was a tourism board, we only wanted to grow. And if I speak to my boss’s time today, it’s all changed and it’s all about how do we actually continue to be relevant in today’s environment. And I think that’s probably the key point, it’s remaining relevant. 

[00:42:43] Brandon Ehrhardt Change is always present and it’s present in travel in many ways, and that’s what I took away as well. So, really great episode. I hope you have a great time in New York. It was awesome having you in the co-pilot seat. As I told you, you can press any of the buttons. Not many of them do anything. So, thanks a lot for joining me. You’re welcome any time, my friend. 

[00:43:01] Andy van der Feltz Thank you, Brandon. Cheers. 

[00:43:06] Brandon Ehrhardt Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Powering Travel Podcast. We have two more episodes left this season, but do not fret, we’re not taking a summer break. We’re taking a couple of weeks off, and Season Three is right around the corner too. So, we want to hear from you. What are the topics you want us to talk about? What do you want to share with us? You can do that at PoweringTravel@Expediagroup.com. That’s right. Send us an email. One word: poweringtravel@Expediagroup.com, and remember, rate and review. It helps people like you find our show. Send us your thoughts. Send us your comments. We’re looking forward to the last two episodes of the season. They’re right around the corner. Until then, have a great day and we’ll talk to you soon. This is Powering Travel brought to you by Expedia Group.