Room key · Phone check-in
Come on in. The motel fits in your pocket.
Turn your sound on, drag to look around, tap anything that looks interesting. It’s even better on a big screen later.
Not your speed? Take the regular site →Room key · Phone check-in
Turn your sound on, drag to look around, tap anything that looks interesting. It’s even better on a big screen later.
Not your speed? Take the regular site →Somewhere off the highway
The most entertaining corner of the tourism industry
A personnel file has been forwarded to you.
Heads up: this trip has flashing lights and sudden sounds.
Best with headphones. Vacancy. Not your speed? Take the regular site →Front desk · before you go
No hard feelings. The road trip isn’t for everybody. Here’s the short version.
Sign the register
Leave a note for future guests. Keep it brief. Make it weird.
“Please keep your comments brief. This is not a town hall.” Clara, night manager
Leave a note for management
This goes directly to Jenn. Collaborations, speaking, Field Labs, or you just wanted to say hi.
“I’ll make sure this gets to the right person. That would be Jenn. Not me.” Clara
Previous guests
Some pages may be missing.
Your presence has been documented.
Thank you for leaving evidence. Management will deny everything.
Room 6 · Private event · Admit one
And you’ve won something management probably shouldn’t have authorized.
90 minutes with Jenn Barbee.Anything goes.*
Tourism. Business. Big ideas. Terrible ideas. Career advice. Creative brainstorming. Industry gossip. That thing you’ve wanted to ask someone for years.
You bring the topic. Jenn brings 30 years of experience and absolutely no PowerPoint.
Claims aren’t open yet. Bessie is still in the tub. Check back soon.
*Anything goes conversationally. Within reason, the law, and Jenn’s professional boundaries. One private virtual session, scheduled by mutual availability. No cash alternative. First verified eligible claimant only. Prize terms
The guest list
Your details go only to Jenn. Nothing is posted publicly.
Status: VIP
Management will be in touch. Please don’t tell Clara.
Room 6 · Private event
Unfortunately, someone else got to her before you did.
Stay for the party anyway. The champagne was already expensed.
⚠ Housekeeping announcement · Ballroom B
EVERYONE SAY YOUR NAME, ORGANIZATION, AND ONE FUN FACT.
We’ll go around the room. Starting with you.
Table 4, you have 30 seconds. Have fun with it!
Click anywhere to run.
The Club
Members only. Everybody welcome.
Tourism has an entire support system for the people who market a destination. The people actually hosting the visitors? Good luck finding the instruction manual.
So we made one. And a place to ask questions, trade notes, and figure out how this whole thing works, for hosts, property managers, DMO teams and everyone in between.
Every Wednesday
A weekly note about how tourism works, why it gets weird, and what we can do better.
The book · coming soon-ish
The tourism book I wish somebody had handed me at nineteen. Thirty years of meetings, marketing campaigns, spectacular ideas, questionable decisions, and people who should never have been given a microphone.
A field guide to the beautiful, ridiculous business of selling places people actually live.
The whole book pageDepartures · Work with Jenn
People don’t hire me for a format. They hire me because something is stuck.
What people bring me in for
Your Threat Assessment recommendation is highlighted on the board.
| Destination | Via | Fare | Status |
|---|
What you leave with: A room that finally said the quiet part out loud, a few decisions everybody owns, and something different happening 90 days later.
Book me directly
Keynotes, conference sessions, a single workshop or facilitation day, a second opinion. One person, one room, one date.
Go through Destination Innovate
Strategy, stakeholder and board alignment programs, Field Labs with Hosts & Home Teams, research like host discovery. My firm with Kristen Cruz. A team, a scope, a timeline.
Not sure which? That’s what the 15 minutes are for.
Room 1 · Long-term guest
I walked into my first tourism agency at sixteen. I never really left.
I was building websites for destinations back when most of them thought the internet was a phase. Thirty-some years and 400+ destinations later, I'm still the one in the room saying what everybody else was thinking.
I've written for Forbes, and 350 columns of my own since 2014. 131 of them are about the relationship tourism keeps avoiding: hosts and DMOs. This summer I stopped writing about it and put them in the same room in Portland. Five destinations asked me to bring it to them next.
I love this industry too much to lie to it.
Barbee v. Tourism · Road map
You are here.
Destination Tomorrow · Official program
Where to catch me next. Bring questions. Sit near the front.
Want me at yours? Keynotes, workshops, retreats and Field Labs.
Grab 15 free minutesChannel 3 · Motel night school
Everything You Wanted to Know About Tourism (But Were Afraid to Ask)
Bessie’s Last Moo 🐄💍 5 cows
Groups book through people, not search bars. If your town wants the bachelorette weekends, the reunions and the weddings, somebody has to keep that list. Usually it’s the DMO and the hosts, together.
My baggage · 30 years, 350 columns
Tell me the problem. I’ll dig through the bag and hand you what I’ve already written about it.
Barbee v. Tourism Motel · Memo from the front desk
Yes, AI was used to build parts of this website.
The ideas, creative direction, writing, questionable judgment, and approximately 400 rounds of “No, that's not what my hair looks like” came from an actual human being.
I've been making things on the internet since 1993. The tools have changed. My inability to leave well enough alone has not.
If you spot an extra finger, please notify the front desk.
Management appreciates your concern.Management
From the bottom of my swag bag.
Conference Bingo
Certificate valid at any hotel ballroom with a coffee station.