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Ty Sawyer shared this“Give me a reason to go” challenges travel brands to discover why an experience matters to someone now. Listen for the desire beneath the interest: reconnection, adventure, a renewed sense of self. Then tell a credible story that helps travelers see themselves in the experience and gives them a personal reason to choose it.
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Ty Sawyer shared thisStop Telling Travelers You’re Authentic ************************************************************************* There are few things in travel marketing more reliably suspicious than being repeatedly assured that something is authentic. A restaurant is authentic. A neighborhood is authentic. A resort offers authentic experiences. Somewhere, presumably, there is now an authentic infinity pool. The word has become so thoroughly applied to everything that it has begun to mean almost nothing. It is the travel-marketing equivalent of a restaurant announcing that its food is delicious. One rather hopes so. The problem is not that travelers have stopped wanting authenticity. Quite the opposite. They want it desperately. They want the little restaurant where three generations of the same family are arguing pleasantly in the kitchen. The market where someone explains a fruit they have never seen before. The bartender who tells them where he actually drinks. The street that still seems to belong to the people who live there rather than to the people photographing it. That distinction matters. Authenticity is not a message. It is evidence.It lives in details too specific to have been produced by a marketing committee: the person, the recipe, the ritual, the accent, the history, the slightly eccentric local habit nobody thought to sanitize for visitors. These are the things that make one place impossible to confuse with another. And this is where travel marketers sometimes get the order exactly backward. We decide that “authenticity” is one of the brand pillars, put the word into the campaign, and then go looking for photographs to prove it.I prefer starting with the people and stories that could only exist there. Find the grandmother making something the same way she was taught. Find the architect who can explain why the buildings look the way they do. Find the neighborhood everyone rushes through on the way to the famous attraction. Find the strange local tradition that requires six minutes of explanation and makes absolutely no sense anywhere else.Then tell those stories exceedingly well. You may discover that you never have to use the word authentic at all. Because the most effective travel marketing does not tell people what to feel about a place. It gives them enough truth, texture and specificity that they arrive at the feeling themselves. This becomes even more important in an AI-saturated world. Perfectly competent descriptions of beautiful places are now extraordinarily easy to manufacture. What cannot be manufactured quite so easily is genuine particularity. The future advantage of a destination may therefore lie not in polishing away its oddities, but in recognizing their value. Travelers do not cross oceans because everywhere is charming, welcoming, vibrant and authentic.They travel because this place could not possibly be anywhere else. That is a much harder story to tell. It is also a much better one.
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Ty Sawyer shared thisTravel marketing is easy. ************************************************************************************ Just answer one simple question: Why should I care? An innocent little question. Five words. Yet capable of dismantling a marketing presentation that took eleven people and a regrettable number of Tuesdays to assemble. You have magnificent scenery. Lovely. So does the calendar in my dentist’s office. Your hotel has 300 rooms. I shall require one. Your destination has something for everyone. Encouraging, although I’m trying to arrange a holiday for me. What will being there mean to the person you’re asking to go? Perhaps it means sitting across from someone they love without either of them looking at a phone. Perhaps it means finally seeing the place their grandfather spent his whole life talking about. Perhaps it means a week in which the most demanding question anyone asks is whether they would like another. Now we’re getting somewhere. People are spending their money, their limited days off, and a considerable amount of hope. Give them something specific to look forward to. Help them understand why it’s worth the journey. Give them reasons to believe you. Then show up where they’re looking, with something worth finding. Repeating “hidden gem” across seven platforms does leave one wondering how hidden the thing can possibly be. I've always believed, “Why should I care?” is the question every travel brand should answer before asking for anyone’s attention. Answer it well, and someone starts imagining themselves there. Possibly even checking flights during your presentation. Which, for once, is an excellent reason to have lost the room.
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Ty Sawyer shared thisWhen a Brand Becomes a Reason to Travel ************************************************************************************** There is a moment in the life of a brand when it can become something more interesting than a product. For Pilsner Urquell, the beer was already famous. The challenge was not persuading people that it existed. It was giving an American traveler a sufficiently compelling reason to cross an ocean, arrive in Prague, and make the Original Beer Experience part of the journey. This is a rather different marketing problem from selling another pint. At Wayne’s World Media, we began with a simple thought: what if visiting Pilsner Urquell was not treated as an attraction, but as a pilgrimage? The idea became our trademarked Brewmance Pilgrimage, which is admittedly a slightly ridiculous word, and therefore exactly the sort of thing people remember. We built an entire marketing ecosystem around it: storytelling, PR, creators, travel trade, social, email, promotions, events and immersive experiences. Even our team became certified Pilsner Urquell pourers because if you are going to tell a story about authenticity, it helps enormously to know which end of the tap the beer comes out of. But the strategy underneath the fun was serious. We stopped marketing a beer experience as something to do in Prague and began positioning it as a reason to go to Prague. That distinction is one I think marketers underestimate. Products describe themselves by what they are. Great brands create stories about what people can become, discover, experience or feel because of them. The moment you make that shift, marketing stops being a sequence of communications and starts becoming an invitation. The Brewmance Pilgrimage generated millions of impressions, strong media coverage, significant trade participation, consumer engagement and increased North American visitation. But what interested me most was not simply that people saw the campaign. They wanted to participate in it. And that, for me, is one of the dividing lines between competent marketing and consequential marketing. Awareness says, “I know what that is.” Interest says, “That looks good.” Desire says, “I want to experience that.” But the rarest achievement is when someone says, “I am going there because of it.” That is where storytelling, branding and travel marketing become extraordinarily powerful. A brewery becomes a pilgrimage. A restaurant becomes a reason to visit a city. A hotel becomes the destination rather than the accommodation. A cultural experience becomes the story someone tells for years afterward. This is why I rarely begin with the question, “How do we promote this?” I prefer: “What could this become in the traveler’s imagination?” Find the answer to that, build a story people genuinely want to enter, and every part of the marketing ecosystem suddenly has something meaningful to amplify. Give people a reason to make the journey.
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Ty Sawyer shared thisSometimes the Best Travel Marketing Doesn’t Look Like Marketing at All ************************************************************************** There is a curious thing about selling travel: the person who ultimately persuades someone to visit a destination is often nowhere near the destination itself. They may be sitting behind a desk in New York, Chicago or Dallas, staring at a screen while a client asks whether Kraków is worth three nights, whether Warsaw is interesting, or what on earth one does in Wrocław. At that moment, all the advertising in the world becomes slightly less important than whether that travel advisor knows the answer. That was the thinking behind the Certified Poland Specialist program. When Wayne’s World Media began the assignment, there wasn’t really a platform to improve. There was essentially a blank page. Six weeks later, we had built the architecture, branding, curriculum, certification journey, five destination learning tracks, 541 questions, digital badges and an expanding library of more than 100 articles, resources and videos. But building a website was never the point. The real objective was to build confidence. Because an advisor who knows a destination is much more likely to recommend it. An advisor who understands its neighborhoods, history, food, culture and possibilities can tell a better story. And an advisor who can tell a better story has a remarkably good chance of putting that destination into someone else’s imagination. That is marketing at its most useful. Within the first six months, 387 advisors became certified. We extended the program through webinars, live training and presentations at the Polish Consulates in New York and Chicago. From Q1 to Q2, total users grew 77 percent, certified users increased 56 percent and course completions rose 45 percent. Those are satisfying numbers. But the more interesting result is what sits behind them. We weren’t simply creating content about Poland. We were creating hundreds of better-informed advocates for Poland. I think brands sometimes make the mistake of believing marketing must always arrive dressed as marketing. An advertisement. A campaign. A clever piece of copy asking someone to click something immediately. Sometimes, the more powerful strategy is to give people knowledge they can use. Teach them enough to become confident. Give them enough material to become interesting. Make the experience valuable enough that they return. Then continue feeding the relationship so the brand becomes part of what they know, not merely something they once saw. That is particularly powerful in travel, where recommendation remains one of the great engines of demand. We built the Certified Poland Specialist platform in six weeks. But the real product wasn’t the platform. It was authority. And once you give people enough knowledge to speak about a destination with conviction, something rather wonderful happens. They begin selling the story for you.
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Ty Sawyer shared thisHow Do You Market a Resort That Doesn’t Exist Yet? ***************************************************************************** There is a small practical difficulty in marketing a luxury resort before it has been built, which is that most of the things people ordinarily expect from a resort are not there. There is no lobby to walk into. No pool in which to look elegantly untroubled. No bartender remembering your mai tai. In places where guests will eventually sleep, there may still be someone with a hard hat discussing plumbing. This was essentially the situation when we began working with Tamarind Hills in Antigua. And we loved the problem. Because it forced us to confront something I have believed for a long time about marketing: people rarely buy the thing itself first. They buy the idea of what the thing might mean in their lives. Our job was not simply to announce that another luxury resort was coming to the Caribbean. There are quite enough beautiful Caribbean resorts already, many of them possessing infinity pools, white towels, and adjectives like “exclusive.” We had to make Tamarind Hills exist in the imagination before it existed completely in the landscape. So we began with the story. What would it feel like to wake above the Caribbean Sea with Darkwood and Ffryes beaches below you? What distinguished owner-rented villas and suites from conventional resort inventory? What did privacy mean here? What kind of traveler would understand the combination of residence, resort service, and contemporary Caribbean luxury? We defined the positioning, the voice, the visual world, and the marketing ecosystem around those questions. The property had to become legible, desirable, and emotionally real before many of its amenities were physically real. Then came the interesting part. Average monthly social growth reached 150 percent. Occupancy never fell below 80 percent. Homeowner presales sold out. And the resort was nearly fully booked before the major amenities were completed. Excellent numbers. But more importantly, people could see themselves there before there was entirely a “there” to see. That is the part of marketing I find most interesting. Story is sometimes treated as the decorative layer applied after strategy has finished doing the serious work. I see it almost exactly the other way around. Story is how strategy becomes human. It turns architecture into anticipation, features into meaning and an unfinished property into a place someone has already begun imagining themselves inside. New brands, destinations, products, and categories all face versions of the same problem. That is why our approach usually begins not with, “What do we need to promote?” It begins with, “What do we need people to believe?” Find that truth. Build the story around it. Then make every part of the marketing ecosystem reinforce it until the audience no longer sees your positioning as a marketing proposition. They simply see the future.
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Ty Sawyer shared thisMaking the World’s Most Interesting Places Impossible to Ignore ************************************************************************** I have spent much of my career thinking about a deceptively simple question: Why do some places get under our skin while others, equally beautiful and equally deserving, disappear into the endless scroll? It is rarely because one destination has the better beach, hotel, restaurant, museum, or sunset. It is because someone understood how to make us care. That distinction matters enormously in travel marketing right now. We have entered an era in which almost every destination can produce beautiful photography, cinematic video, influencer content, and an endless stream of perfectly polished social posts. AI will only accelerate that. The cost of creating content is falling. The volume of content is exploding. Which means beauty alone is becoming a commodity. Attention is not. The next generation of destination marketing will be won by the places that understand what people need, then create a story, an experience, and a reason to believe that this particular place can fulfill it. Sometimes we travel because we need adventure. Sometimes we need romance, renewal, connection, discovery, status, belonging or simply the extraordinary pleasure of feeling somewhere else for a while. That is the opportunity. Stop beginning with, “What should we tell people about our destination?” Begin with, “What does our traveler need to feel, become or rediscover, and what can happen here that cannot happen quite the same way anywhere else?” That one change in perspective transforms marketing. Strategy stops being a media plan and becomes an understanding of human motivation. Storytelling stops being decoration and becomes the connective tissue between a place and a person. Branding stops being a logo, tagline or color palette and becomes an unmistakable point of view. Technology and AI stop being the strategy and become powerful tools for delivering that idea with greater intelligence, personalization, and scale. And growth becomes the consequence of relevance. This is why I have always believed that the most valuable thing a marketer can bring to a destination is not exposure. It is perspective. People. Places. Perspective. Possibilities. Understand the people. Find what is remarkable about the place. Develop a perspective that belongs to it. Then show people possibilities they had not imagined for themselves. That is how destinations move from being seen to being remembered. From remembered to desired. From desired to chosen. I have been fortunate enough to travel much of the world, and the lesson I keep bringing home is that the world does not suffer from a shortage of extraordinary places. It suffers from too many extraordinary places being marketed in derivative, ordinary, expected ways. Our job is to change that. Because the right story can make the world’s most interesting places impossible to ignore.
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Ty Sawyer shared thisWhat Happens When a Destination Stops Advertising and Starts Taking Over? (and the Case Study that says it all) **************************************************************************** There is a great deal of perfectly competent travel marketing in the world. This is part of the problem. Beautiful beaches appear. Food is photographed from directly overhead. Influencers gaze thoughtfully at sunsets. Somewhere, at almost any given moment, a destination is inviting us to “discover” something. The work is attractive, polished, and increasingly difficult to distinguish from the attractive, polished work appearing immediately before and after it. So with the Philippines, we decided not to make another campaign. We decided to create an event people would want to watch. The Destination Takeover All-In: take the destination out of the brochure, put it into culture, surround it with people who already have credibility with travelers, and create enough genuine activity that the audience doesn’t simply receive the marketing. They encounter it. And for Destination Takeover All-In...it's live. We brought together leading food influencers, digital storytelling, media, partnerships, and real-world experiences around Filipino cuisine and culture. From New York to San Francisco, we created a three-week, bi-coastal smackdown around a wonderfully arguable question: which city does Filipino food better? East Coast v West Coast. Personality. Competition. Discovery. People had a reason to follow along and, more importantly, a reason to have an opinion. That distinction is central to how we think about marketing. I am less interested in asking, “How do we get more impressions?” than in asking, “What can we create that people will voluntarily pay attention to?” Because the most powerful marketing does not feel as though it has interrupted your day. It becomes part of your day. The results were extraordinary: 3.7 million people reached in 30 days, more than 712,000 clicks, a 390,000 increase in followers, and sustained engagement across the campaign ecosystem. We gave people something to talk about. The Philippines stopped being simply the subject of the advertising and became the setting for a story unfolding in real time. Food became an entry point to people, culture and place. Influencers became participants rather than billboards. Social became storytelling rather than distribution. The campaign became an experience rather than a collection of assets. That is why we believe the next generation of destination marketing will belong to ideas that are difficult to contain inside the word “campaign.” A strong concept should connect PR, creators, social, experiential, video, media, and consumer conversation without losing its identity. Each channel should make the idea larger. And the best ideas contain something advertising money cannot easily purchase: the desire to see what happens next. That is the principle behind Destination Takeover All-In.
Ty Sawyer replied to a comment
1mo
Pauline Frommer I actually was thinking about this, as well. At a certain point, if AI is the driver, then Ai will be referencing itself because AI is becoming the source and the creator. I think the third path may be prescient. In the end, we are still human and crave human connection. So, keeping a channel human-sourced, may be worth holding on to for the future.
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked thisI’m looking forward to WTM London 2026, where global travel comes together to connect, innovate, and move forward. Ideas spark, partnerships grow, and the future takes shape. Join me and be part of it: https://lnkd.in/gr-KwbfU ✈️ #WTMLondon #Travelpower #WTMLDN
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked thisA beautiful recognition, and an even greater honor to share. Castle Hill Inn has been named the #1 Hotel in the Northeast in the 2026 Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards. To everyone who has stayed with us, dined with us, celebrated here, or simply spent an afternoon on the Lawn. Thank you for making Castle Hill Inn part of your story. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eXRcGjHk
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked thisCheck out this piano inside a preserved shipwreck! This may appear as a dusty and forgotten old room but guess what. It's UNDERWATER. The Yacht Gunilda sank in August 1911 in Northern Lake Superior. It's preserved in the cold (37f degree) freshwater. Inside one of the rooms is a piano. I can just imagine someone playing as others sat at the table smoking cigars and playing cards. It sits in complete darkness in 270 feet of freezing water. It's truly one of the most beautiful shipwrecks in the world don't you think? Photo by Becky Kagan Schott : Follow for more!
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked this🏙️ Gościnne Visit Poznan | Poznań Tourism Organisation i Wielkopolska Organizacja Turystyczna przyjęły w ostatnich dniach blisko 100 przedstawicieli branży turystycznej z całego świata! 🌍 🤝 Razem z partnerami: Wielkopolska Organizacja Turystyczna, Poznańska Lokalna Organizacja Turystyczna, LOT Polish Airlines, National Geographic Traveler pokazaliśmy różne oblicza Polski: od aktywnego wypoczynku 🚴, przez kuchnię 🍽️, historię 🏰 i kulturę 🎭, aż po atrakcje dla całych rodzin 👨👩👧👦. 💬 Wczoraj przyszedł czas na rozmowy stolikowe, podczas których regiony i miasta mogły nawiązać cenne kontakty. Dzięki nim polska oferta będzie jeszcze skuteczniej docierać do turystów zagranicznych. 🎥 Wspólnie z Wiceprezesem POT Paweł Moras podsumowujemy tegoroczną edycję Buy Poland! Ministerstwo Sportu i Turystyki #BuyPoland #BuyPoland2026 #Poznań #Wielkopolska #PolskaOrganizacjaTurystyczna
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked thisDziś w Poznaniu spotykają się przedstawiciele polskiej i międzynarodowej branży turystycznej podczas BUY POLAND 2026, wydarzenia organizowanego przez Polska Organizacja Turystyczna. Wśród uczestników jest również Marzena, która reprezentuje nasz hotel i rozmawia z zagranicznymi touroperatorami oraz partnerami turystycznymi z różnych rynków. Cieszymy się, że możemy być częścią wydarzenia, które łączy ludzi, doświadczenia i biznes wokół tego, co Polska ma najlepszego do zaoferowania. A my niezmiennie pokazujemy, że Kraków warto odwiedzić. I warto w nim zostać na dłużej.
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked this75 Jahre Skål International Düsseldorf und Region - Sie sind eingeladen! Feiern Sie dieses besondere Jubiläum mit uns am 10. November 2026 bei einem festlichen Abend mit internationalem Austausch in Deutschlands größtem Tourismusnetzwerk und genießen Sie kulinarische Highlights, Live-Unterhaltung und besondere Begegnungen im Crowne Plaza Düsseldorf-Neuss. Seit nunmehr 75 Jahren steht unser Düsseldorfer Club für Austausch, Verbundenheit und die Förderung des Tourismus in der Region. Diesen besonderen Meilenstein möchten wir gemeinsam mit unseren Gästen feiern. Schreiben Sie direkt unserem Düsseldorfer Club Präsidenten Michael G. Meyer um sich anzumelden und merken Sie sich jetzt den 10. November vor. Wir freuen uns auf Sie! 55,- € p.P. inkl. 3 Gänge Menü, Rahmenprogramm und sämtlichen Getränken des Abends #Skål #Düsseldorf #Tourismus #Jubiläum
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked thisDiscussing the next phase of ETC activities on Dublin’s scenic coast. 🌊 Today our Board of Directors met to examine the main priorities of ETC’s Action Programme 2027, which will guide our advocacy, knowledge and promotional work in the year ahead. 🚀 Exciting things are coming up as we strive for a resilient and sustainable European travel industry. Thanks for the productive talks reflecting on 2026 tourism performance and setting our future direction. Stay tuned, more updates from Ireland coming soon! ☘️
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked thisHappy Flag Day, Dominica! 🥳 On November 3, 1978, we raised our flag for the first time as Dominica became independent. 48 years on, Alwin Bully’s design still says so much about who we are. 🟩 The green is our forests, the reason we’re the Nature Island ➕ The cross of yellow, black and white stands for the Holy Trinity and our faith 🟨 Yellow is our sunshine, our citrus and bananas and our first peoples ⬛ Black is our rich soil and our African heritage ⬜ White is our clear rivers and waterfalls and the hopes we hold as a people 🔴 The red disc stands for social justice 🪶 The Sisserou, found only here and still endangered, reminds us to keep reaching higher and to protect what makes this island ours ✳️ And the ten green stars are our ten parishes, equal and together So wherever you are today, in Roseau, in the village or in the diaspora, put up your flag and wear your colors. #FlagDay #JounenDwapo #NationalEmblemsWeek #DiscoverDominica #NatureIsland #Dominica #Independence
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Ty Sawyer liked thisTy Sawyer liked thisWatch the latest industry video from our Managing Director, Robin Mack (GAICD), filmed live at G'day Australia 2026 in Darwin / Garramilla. #SeeAustralia #ComeAndSayGday #GdayAustralia2026 Tourism and Events NT Singapore Airlines
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Alison Weissbrot
The biggest deal in advertising history closed last week and ADWEEK was all over it with wall-to-wall coverage. Audrey Kemp broke news of the deal closing late Wednesday before Thanksgiving. On Monday, she and I reported on Omnicom's new structure and leadership, including news that the company would sunset iconic agencies DDB, FCB Global, and MullenLowe Global and lay off a 4,000 staffers. In addition: 💥 Brittaney Kiefer looked at the staggering numbers behind the deal, as well as the most memorable campaigns from the three agencies being closed 💥 Robert Klara broke down the need-to-knows behind the deal, looked at why new McCann Worldgroup CEO Tyler Turnbull is the one to watch, and traced 123 years of M&A history that led to the Omnicom of today 💥 Rebecca Stewart told us who's who on Omnicom's new leadership team 💥 In addition to sneaking her way into Omnicom Media Group's first town hall post-merger, Kendra Barnett broke news that IPG Mediabrands' top exec is out and looked into why principal media buying is a huge motivator of the deal 💥 Kathryn Lundstrom and Lauren Johnson scouted out the retail media tech firms Omnicom could buy to bolster its commerce offering 💥 William Bradley examined what all means for the TV market as a new world's biggest media buyer enters negotiations 💥 And Ryan Joe and I chatted about it all in this week's episode of Adspeak Keep following along with our coverage, there's tons more to come as the fallout of the acquisition continues.
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Angel Guerrero
BREAKING NEWS: Omnicom’s $13.5B acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG) creates the world’s largest agency group, reshaping the competitive landscape with unmatched scale in data, media, and technology. The move sets a new industry baseline for fully connected, accountable, and intelligence-driven marketing solutions. adobo magazine #thewordoncreativity READ THE FULL STORY HERE: https://ebx.sh/LgKsJv
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Jack Marshall
Advertising and subscriptions will remain the core revenue drivers for news publishers in 2026, per Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. We're redoubling our efforts to support monetization for news publishers at DoubleVerify this year to ensure advertisers understand -- and can capitalize on -- the powerful brand-building opportunities news audiences present.
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