Destruptor Wrapped: Best of 2025

Welcome to the annual ritual where we look back at the year in tourism, pour a glass, and whisper:

“Are we okay?” (We are not. But we’re fascinating.)

This was the year your girl accidentally became a columnist. Isweartogod, I didn’t plan this.

One minute I wrote a little essay about DMOs. The next minute I was in a full-blown fugue state producing 200 longform pieces like the municipal Joan Didion of the tourism workforce.

The keyboard had me in a chokehold. I just… started writing. And the words did not stop coming.

You read them at your desk, in your kitchen, in bathroom stalls between sessions, and once, allegedly, during a budget hearing where someone confidently misused the word "strategy."

So, darling tourism professionals, gather ‘round: It’s time for your Daily Destruptor Wrapped 2025.

🎶 1. MOST-PLAYED BANGERS

The ones you forwarded with “I’m not saying she’s right but she’s right.”

A Brief, Chaotic History of the Modern DMO

Sent to boards faster than you can say “funding structure mismatch.” (Link)

Please Hold, Your Lodging Sector Will Be With You Shortly

Finally, a customer service script for tourism’s collective nervous breakdown. (Link)

Service Is the New Souvenir

You cried. Your frontline staff cried. Your board said, “Great message,” and then approved nothing. (Link)

Everyday Audacity

Because that's what it takes, hon. (Link)

🔥 2. CHAOS ENERGY HITS

For your group chat. For your burner account. For your spirit.

Coachella Lost the Plot

I spoke. Influencers wept. (Link)

She Is Tourism

The motherhood rant heard ‘round the world. Women sobbed. Men felt feelings and panicked. (Link)

Active Listening, but Make It Main Character

If satire and TED Talk energy had a baby. (Link)

You Can’t Catch Up on Sleep (or Trends)

Your insomnia anthem. (Link)

🏛️ 3. DESTINATION POLITICS: THE SOAP OPERA

A Brief, Chaotic History of the Modern DMO

Yes it’s here again. It’s Beyoncé. It gets multiple categories. (Link)

The Danger of Getting Too Good at Change

PSA: Adaptation is not a personality. (Link)

Transparency is the New Tourism Strategy

As it should be. (Link)

🏠 4. HOST GAP ANTHEMS

Music for the lodging sector kids who’ve had ENOUGH.

Please Hold, Your Lodging Sector Will Be With You Shortly

Unhinged but accurate. (Link)

The Hotel Hangover

Business model exhaustion but make it poetic. (Link)

Phones Are Over, Apparently

A love letter to DMOs who are one voicemail away from collapse. (Link)

Service Is the New Souvenir

Because hospitality IS the product, period. (Link)

🤖 5. FUTURE-OF-WORK VIBES

The calm before the automation.

Tourism Strategy You’ll Wish You’d Stolen

You bookmarked this. You highlighted this. You have not started this. (Link)

Active Listening, But Make it Main Character

You're always the heart of your own story, plot twist - we are interconnected. (Link)

💗 6. SHE IS TOURISM HEART TRACKS

The soft center. The emotional core. The movement.

These Are the People in Your Neighborhood

This one made everyone text their mom. (Link)

She Is Tourism

The mother of the movement. (Link)

What if Your Visitor Sat at the Board Table

Spoiler: They should. (Link)

✨ WHAT I'M OBSESSED WITH IN 2026

2026 is the year of:

1. Radical Clarity

We are no longer explaining the obvious. We say it once. You either get it or you don’t. Godspeed.

2. Third Spaces With Actual Soul

Coffee shops. Porches. Short-term rentals with fire pits. We’re done meeting in carpeted conference rooms that feel like a Marriott storage closet.

3. Women Out of Their Politeness Era

No malice. Just accuracy.

4. Communities as Main Characters

People are the product. The destination is the backdrop. Marketing is the side quest.

5. Civic Imagination

Less “best practices,” more “why not?” Less “templates,” more “texture.” Less “what is allowed?” and more “what is possible?”

6. Lightly Fermented Delusion

We are no longer pretending every idea must be reasonable. Reasonable never changed an industry.

🚫 AND WHAT WE ARE LEAVING BEHIND

1. Beige Thinking

In 2026 we color.

2. Weaponized Niceness

If you’re going to sabotage someone, at least be interesting.

3. Burnout as Personality

Rest is the new rebellion.

4. Chamber/DMO Hybrids Pretending It’s Fine

It’s not fine. We all know it’s not fine. Blink twice if you need help.

5. “Is This AI?” Discourse

If the words slapped, does it matter?

🖤 THE ERA SHIFT

2025 was the year I wrote like the building was on fire. Fast. Sweaty. Urgent. Like the words were trying to outrun something.

But 2026?

Oh honey.

2026 is the year I write like I lit the match on purpose for warmth, for clarity, for the beauty hiding in the blind spots.

It’s not destruction. It’s illumination.

And if 2025 was me finding my voice, 2026 is me aiming it.

I’m Jenn Barbee, this has been your Daily Destruptor Wrapped 2025, reminding you to tip your waitstaff. And fire your agency.