What Big Bear Learned From Almost Losing It: A Conversation With Travis Scott, CEO of Visit Big Bear

Business Class by Learn Tourism, Episode with Travis Scott

Two years ago this September, the Line Fire crept toward the top of the mountain above San Bernardino County, and Big Bear Lake went from a postcard mountain town to a community under evacuation orders. Six thousand residents needed somewhere to go — fast.

That moment, more than anything else, is why we wanted Travis Scott on Business Class. Travis is the CEO of Visit Big Bear, and in this episode, he talks about what happened next: how a phone call to a community member who happened to work at Airbnb turned into a housing program that later became the model Los Angeles used during last year's wildfires. It's a story about a DMO stepping fully into its role as a community partner, not just a marketing shop — and it's the kind of story that sticks with you long after the episode ends.

Tourism is built with the community, not sold to it

Travis has spent his career moving between the wine industry and destination organizations — Mendocino County, before Big Bear, wineries before that. Across both worlds, he's landed on the same operating principle: don't build a destination brand and hand it to the community. Build the brand with the community and hand them the voice.

"Instead of us just creating a brand and telling the community what its voice should be, I really like to flip that the other way and work with the community, give them a voice in the process," Travis said. He's watched that approach shrink the "destination strife" that shows up almost everywhere tourism and residents share the same streets — the tension between people who live somewhere and the visitors who come to enjoy it.

This is worth sitting with if you work in a destination that's ever heard "tourism doesn't benefit us" from a resident, a council member, or a local business owner. Travis's answer isn't a better tagline. It's earlier, more genuine involvement — treating community members as co-authors of the destination story rather than as an audience for it.

Try this: Before your next campaign, brand refresh, or wayfinding project, ask who from the community has been in the room. If the honest answer is "no one yet," that's your starting point.

When the mountain caught fire, the DMO became a relief coordinator

The Line Fire evacuation is the moment in this conversation that will stay with you. Faced with thousands of residents who needed housing on short notice, Travis leaned on a relationship already built into the fabric of the destination — a community member and Airbnb community leader named Tara, who got Airbnb.org on the phone. Visit Big Bear worked with neighboring destinations in the Los Angeles area to build a plan, and Airbnb.org ultimately donated ten days of free housing per evacuated resident.

That program later became the template Airbnb.org and the City of Los Angeles used during last year's wildfires.

Travis is careful not to make this about tourism marketing. "That's the part that I really love about this job — I get to support my community in multiple ways, all the time," he said. "Not just to have a great tourism economy, but really to support my neighbors, my friends, put food on their table."

For anyone in destination work, this is a useful gut-check: the relationships you build for ribbon-cuttings and partner co-ops are the same relationships that matter in a crisis. Community trust isn't a marketing asset. It's infrastructure.

Reflect: Who in your community — a business, a nonprofit, a neighboring destination — do you already have a relationship with that you've never had to test in a real emergency? Would it hold up if you needed it tomorrow?

Stewardship is the story, not the slogan

Asked what he wished the conversation had covered, Travis didn't hesitate: the role his organization plays in reaching people, and using that reach for education and stewardship. Not a "leave no trace" bumper sticker, but genuinely teaching visitors what stewardship means in this specific place, and inviting them to embrace it as part of the destination experience.

It's a good reminder that stewardship works best as a story you tell well, not a rule you post at the trailhead.

On AI, and the case for better storytelling

Travis also offered a candid, two-sided take on AI's effect on his work. On the operational side, it's real and immediate — Visit Big Bear has seen direct bookings through its own reservation engine drop as travelers complete their planning using AI tools instead, and the team is now working to become more discoverable by those tools.

On the creative side, his view is more personal: he worries that easy access to AI has, in some cases, diluted the craft of marketing storytelling. When we suggested a different framing — that AI might actually free up more space for humans to be better storytellers, since the busywork gets automated away — Travis liked the reframe enough to sit with it on air. "A crutch or a catalyst," as we put it. Which one it becomes probably depends less on the tool and more on whether the storyteller keeps showing up.

One thing to take with you

Big Bear's tourism organization didn't earn community trust through a campaign. It earned it by showing up as a genuine partner — in good times and, when the mountain caught fire, in the worst ones too.

Wherever you work, the question worth carrying into your next planning meeting is the one underneath Travis's whole conversation: is your community a co-author of your destination's story, or just an audience for it?

Listen to the full conversation with Travis Scott on Business Class by Learn Tourism.