Borrowed Brilliance: Stealing Proven Strategies From Outside Tourism to Elevate Destination Marketing

When I moved from the hotel side of tourism marketing into the DMO world, I had to shift from marketing a single property to promoting the entire destination. Like many of us, I turned to my peers to learn the best practices in destination marketing. 

I went to the conferences, joined the associations, and read all the case studies and newsletters. I wanted to understand how the DMO industry operates, what works, and where I could learn from others already doing the job. Peer learning is powerful, and it’s necessary.

While I still firmly believe in the power of peer learning, I’ve also found another truth: great ideas come from both within our industry and beyond it. In the DMO industry, we can be too quick to recycle the same ideas, speakers, and case studies. Sure, a new technology, a crisis, or a fresh vendor might shake things up from time to time. But more often than not, we validate each other instead of challenging ourselves with perspectives from outside our category.

The Problem With Peer Learning

Most destination marketers only have the time and budget to attend a handful of events each year, often prioritizing those hosted by Destinations International, U.S. Travel, or state and regional associations. These events are extremely valuable, but the content is often an echo chamber. Destination marketers presenting to destination marketers. Vendors presenting work done for destinations.

But there are so many opportunities when you look to other industries for inspiration: 

The Missing Piece of Destination Marketing

What’s missing is exposure to the broader marketing landscape. The ideas shaping consumer behavior in other industries. The strategies driving measurable growth in other sectors. Because the truth is, some of the most effective marketing happening today has nothing to do with tourism.

Yes, DMOs operate in a uniquely complex environment. You don’t own the product. You don’t fully control the brand. You’re balancing multiple stakeholders, audiences, and expectations, often while defending budgets at every turn.

But those challenges don’t make cross-industry learning irrelevant. They make it essential.

The opportunity isn’t to copy what other industries are doing; it’s to translate it. To take proven strategies from sectors like real estate, retail, and eCommerce, and apply them through a tourism lens. That’s exactly what we’re doing at Go Fish Tourism + Business Events.

Introducing Borrowed Brilliance

As our tourism division integrates more deeply with the broader Go Fish Digital team, we’re gaining exposure to how high-performing brands outside of travel think about marketing. How they drive conversions. How they build demand. How they measure success. And we’re applying those lessons to our destination partners.

We don’t think those insights should stay inside our team, so we’re sharing them.

Our new Borrowed Brilliance series is about looking beyond our industry to find better ways to do the work. It’s about challenging assumptions, raising the bar, and bringing fresh thinking back to destination marketing.

Because if we want different results, we need different inputs.

Follow along for my upcoming Borrowed Brilliance blogs, or catch insights on LinkedIn and emails from Go Fish Tourism + Business Events.