I landed in Philadelphia for U.S. Travel's ESTO 2026 not entirely sure what to expect, but full of excitement to be back in a city I've been visiting since I was 13 years old.

I left with new perspectives on Philly's own layered history and a lot of ideas about trust, curiosity, community, technology, and leadership that I'm still turning over. 

That's the thing about a good conference. You go for the sessions, but you come home changed by the conversations you had and the stories you heard.

What made ESTO different for me wasn't any single big idea. It was how often a session ended, and I found myself still talking it through with someone at my table, in the hallway, or over coffee the next morning. I met people from across the country with all kinds of titles, responsibilities, and perspectives. I learned from every exchange, and nearly every session I attended created space for questions, discussion, and learning from one another.

Here are the ideas I brought home.

A Destination's Story Is One of Its Greatest Teaching Tools

ESTO opened with an evening at Philadelphia's incredible Masonic Temple that turned out to be a history nerd's dream. Between culinary nods to Philadelphia's food culture and an immersive tour through the building's hidden layers and concealed spaces, I learned more about Philadelphia's civic and architectural history in one evening than I would have from any guidebook.

It was a good reminder, before a single education session had even started, that a destination's own story is one of its greatest teaching tools. We spend a lot of time thinking about how to market places. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is help people understand them.

Build Trust Before You Need It

One of the strongest themes I heard throughout ESTO was trust. Trust with residents. Trust with policymakers. Trust within organizations. Trust between state and local tourism partners. And perhaps most importantly, trust with the communities we're asking to believe in the value of tourism.

One conversation focused specifically on resident sentiment, public scrutiny, and political pressure. The idea that stayed with me was simple: you can't wait until a crisis to start building trust. It has to happen proactively through civic pride, local storytelling, transparency, community relationships, and consistent engagement.

Another conversation later in the conference reinforced the same point from a different angle: one of the hardest audiences a destination organization has to reach isn't necessarily a traveler. It's the resident who doesn't understand tourism's value, the elected official asking hard questions, or the community leader deciding whether your work deserves support.

That isn't simply public relations. It's relationship building, and relationships take time.

Curiosity May Be One of Our Most Important Leadership Skills

One of my favorite conversations of the entire conference was about curiosity. Big shout-out to Diana Kander for her incredible keynote. I will be thinking about the Snoop Dogg vs. Vanilla Ice approach for a long time 😃. The premise was simple and a little uncomfortable: the longer we manage a destination, brand, department, or team, the easier it becomes for our hard-earned expertise to quietly turn into a blind spot.

We know how things work.

We know what has worked before.

We know what our audiences want.

Until we don't.

Curiosity creates room to challenge those assumptions. Instead of asking, "How have we always done this?" we can ask, "What are we missing?” Instead of immediately defending an idea, we can investigate it. Instead of treating experimentation as a risk, we can create environments where learning is part of the work.

That's a mindset I'm fully embracing as we plan future programming at Learn Tourism.

Community Engagement Doesn't Mean Mission Drift

Destination organizations are increasingly being asked to participate in conversations that extend well beyond traditional tourism marketing. Housing. Workforce development. Economic development. Quality of life. Accessibility. Sustainability. Community planning. The challenge is knowing where a destination organization can create meaningful value and where involvement begins pulling the organization away from its mission.

One case study from Southwest Louisiana explored exactly that tension and offered practical ways to evaluate when deeper DMO involvement makes sense. This connects to a larger shift happening across tourism: destinations aren't simply promoting communities anymore. They're increasingly being asked to participate in helping those communities thrive.

That requires clear roles, strong partnerships, and the confidence to know when to lead, when to collaborate, and sometimes when to step back.

Local Pride Might Be One of Tourism's Most Powerful Marketing Tools

Another idea that stayed with me was something most tourism professionals understand intuitively:

Travel often starts with an invitation.

• A friend tells you about a restaurant.
• Someone shares photos from a favorite trail.
• A resident tells you why they love their hometown.

Those recommendations carry something advertising can't manufacture: genuine affection for a place. One discussion explored how destinations can uncover the shared truths and emotional connections residents already have with their communities and translate them into marketing. It reinforced something we talk about often at Learn Tourism: residents aren't separate from the visitor experience. They're part of it! When people understand their community, feel proud of it, and know how to share its stories, they become some of the destination's most powerful advocates.

Discovery Is Changing Fast

Of course, AI was part of the conversation. Travelers are increasingly moving between traditional search, social platforms, maps, online reviews, and AI assistants as they decide where to go and what to do. That changes what "getting found" means. One of the most useful discussions I attended shared data about how AI search is already affecting destination websites and explored some of the differences in how large language models find, interpret, and surface information.

For marketers, the challenge isn't simply learning another platform. It's understanding that destination discovery itself is changing. That means our websites, content strategies, data, digital infrastructure, and marketing teams will have to evolve with it.

Collaboration Sounds Easy Until You Have to Do It

One of the more candid conversations of the conference tackled a tension that exists throughout tourism: state tourism offices and local destination organizations often want the same thing while operating within very different realities. Different budgets, stakeholders, geographic priorities, political pressures, and definitions of success. The discussion wasn't about pretending those differences don't exist. It was about figuring out how to work together despite them. That lesson applies far beyond state and local tourism organizations.

Real collaboration requires more than agreeing on the goal. It requires understanding what the people sitting across the table are responsible for, what constraints they're working within, and what success looks like from their perspective.

The DMO of Tomorrow Can't Operate Like the DMO of Yesterday

One of the final conversations I attended challenged destination organizations to rethink how they operate internally. Technology is moving quickly. Traveler behavior is changing. Community expectations are growing. Teams are being asked to accomplish more across increasingly complex areas of responsibility. Rigid organizational structures weren't designed for that environment.

The discussion explored what destination organizations can learn from high-velocity technology companies: faster experimentation, greater adaptability, cross-functional collaboration, and organizational cultures that make learning part of everyday work.

The goal isn't for every DMO to become a tech company. It's to build organizations capable of adapting when the world changes.

Resilient Optimism Is a Leadership Strategy

ESTO ended on an idea that tied together much of what I'd heard throughout the week: resilient optimism.

Not blind optimism. Not pretending challenges don't exist.

The kind of optimism that acknowledges uncertainty and pressure while still believing progress is possible and choosing to move forward. That feels particularly relevant to tourism right now. We're navigating AI, political pressure, workforce challenges, changing traveler behavior, community concerns, economic uncertainty, and rapidly evolving expectations. Leadership in that environment requires resilience, and the belief that we can learn, adapt, collaborate, and make things better.

Bringing It Home

If I had to distill my first ESTO into one idea, it would be something our CEO and Founder said to me:

“We move at the speed of trust.” - Stephen Ekstrom

Nearly every conversation I participated in came back to it. Trust with residents, policymakers, tourism organizations, and our teams is essential to our community’s success. Especially now, we need to build the kind of trust that lets us all ask hard questions, experiment with new ideas, admit when something isn't working, and try something different. ESTO inspired me to think about how everything we do should build and strengthen that foundation. 

I'm heading home with goals to share with my team, a commitment to put what I learned into action before the end of the year, and a heart full of gratitude for everyone who welcomed a first-time ESTO attendee into the conversation.

With Gratitude and a Passion for Learning

A huge thank you to U.S. Travel, the ESTO organizers, our Philadelphia hosts (Visit Philly and the Philadelphia CVB), and every speaker, facilitator, volunteer, and attendee who made the week such a meaningful learning experience. For anyone curious about the sessions that inspired these reflections, here's what was on my ESTO learning list:

• A Grand ESTO Welcome – Secrets of Philly: Beneath the Surface
• ESTO Cares
• The Resident Equation: Earning Trust Before You Need It
• Keynote: Unleash Your Curiosity
• How DMOs Can Support Community Vision Without Mission Drift
• Turning Local Pride into Your Best Ad Campaign
• The Internal PR Mandate: Proving Tourism's Value to Residents and Power Players
• Playing Offense: Leading Through Pressure, Change and Public Expectations
• Beyond Search: Rethinking Destination Discoverability
• State vs. Local: How to Actually Win Together
• Agile DMO: Transitioning from Traditional Agency to High-Velocity Tech Culture
• Keynote: Resilient Optimism: The Catalyst for Lasting Momentum

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, challenging assumptions, asking good questions, and giving all of us plenty to keep thinking about long after we left Philadelphia.

Looking for more ideas to strengthen your destination through education, workforce development, and community engagement? Explore more articles on the Learn Tourism blog.

About the Author - Sarah Benoit

Sarah Benoit is a marketing strategist, technology expert, and adult educator passionate about helping destinations, nonprofits, tourism businesses, and purpose-driven brands connect with their audiences through authentic storytelling and innovative digital marketing. Since 2003, Sarah has spent more than two decades helping organizations navigate emerging technologies, build meaningful relationships online, and develop sustainable marketing strategies that drive measurable results. As Lead Instructor at Learn Tourism, she is a sought-after speaker and trainer specializing in digital marketing, AI, social media, community engagement, and leadership. She empowers professionals to embrace change and lead with curiosity, creativity, emotional intelligence, and confidence. Through her work, Sarah champions lifelong learning and believes that technology is most powerful when it strengthens human connection.

About Learn Tourism the nonprofit academy...

Learn Tourism is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the tourism industry through innovative educational practices and professional development initiatives. Our mission is to harness the power of science, business psychology, and adult education to build sustainable economies and enrich the tourism landscape.